Christa Pike set to become first woman executed in Tennessee

Christa Pike, 50, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 10am on 30 September at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee. If the execution proceeds, she will be the first woman put to death in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Pike has spent over three decades on death row since her 1996 sentencing for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer.bbc.co.uk

The case matters because it tests whether a governor's clemency power can override an exhausted appeals process, and because Pike's defence argues the jury never heard the full scope of her childhood abuse. Only 18 women have been executed in the United States since the 1970s, compared with 1,663 men, according to figures cited. Pike's case has drawn attention from UN human rights experts, who have called for the execution to be stopped.

What the execution date means

Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and murdered Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old fellow student at a Job Corps training centre in Knoxville, on 12 January 1995. Court testimony described an attack lasting around 30 minutes. Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to death on 30 March 1996. Shipp, who was 17 at the time, received life with the possibility of parole.

Pike's lawyers filed a 226-page clemency petition asking Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to commute her death sentence to life without the possibility of parole. The petition argues Pike was sexually abused between ages two and five by her grandmother's boyfriend, raped by a neighbour at 11, and raped by a stranger at 17. The petition also states she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder while incarcerated.tyla.com

The petition's central claim is that the jury never heard the full extent of the abuse. Forensic psychologist Dr Diana McCoy, hired by Pike's defence in 1995, found Pike was severely neglected and physically and sexually abused. Pike's trial lawyer did not call McCoy to the stand. Dr Bethany Brand, who assessed Pike in 2023, said Pike had untreated manic episodes from bipolar disorder and untreated PTSD that influenced how threatened she felt.

The clemency petition's claims

A federal appeals court has already ruled against Pike on this point, finding the jury heard testimony about her difficult childhood from her mother, father and aunt, and that new evidence of bipolar disorder, PTSD and brain damage mostly repeated what the jury had heard. Tennessee's Supreme Court ruled last year that Pike had not shown circumstances that would justify commuting her sentence. Her appeals process has been exhausted.

Governor Bill Lee holds the constitutional authority to grant clemency in Tennessee, and the Tennessee Board of Parole can make recommendations, but the governor has the final decision. Pike's legal team is also pursuing other avenues, including court proceedings and emergency stays. Pike has separately asked for an all-female execution team, arguing that men involved in her final moments could retraumatise her, or, failing that, to be hanged instead.

What the courts have already decided

Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, has opposed clemency, telling the Daily Mail that Pike's request for an all-female team is unfair and that Pike did not consider how her daughter felt. Colleen's mother has said she wants the execution to proceed so her daughter 'finally can be resting'. The Death Penalty Information Center reports that Tennessee's lawyers have not disputed the core factual claims about the abuse in the petition.

Sandra Babcock, a Cornell Law School expert in gender and the death penalty working on Pike's defence, said the jury never considered Pike's history of abuse. Babcock argued that executing Pike would show the death penalty is applied to those with the worst legal representation rather than the worst crimes. UN human rights experts have also called for the execution to be halted.

Preparations at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville are underway, including the selection of official media witnesses. Pike texted her friend Ashlee Sellars from her cell saying she does not want loved ones present on 30 September. The execution date of 10am on 30 September remains set unless Governor Lee grants clemency or a court issues a stay in the coming days.nypost.com