Officials face questions about the state’s lethal injection protocol after two doses of pentobarbital failed to kill the condemned prisoner.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee has stopped executions for the rest of 2026 and ordered an independent review of its lethal injection system after Christa Pike survived two doses of the drug intended to execute her at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.
The unusual failure has shifted attention from Pike’s decades-old death sentence to the state’s execution procedures and the unanswered question of how a process officials say was followed correctly ended without her death. Pike, 50, was taken from the prison to a hospital Wednesday night and remained in critical condition after the attempt. State officials have not announced what specifically went wrong.
Gov. Bill Lee called the result “deeply disturbing” and said Tennesseans deserved answers. He ordered a third-party examination of the failed execution and postponed the only other Tennessee execution that had been scheduled for the remainder of the year. The review places the state’s procedures under renewed scrutiny only after officials recently resumed executions under a revised lethal injection system.
Tennessee’s protocol uses pentobarbital and provides for a backup dose if the first does not result in death. Both doses were administered to Pike, according to accounts of the execution and her attorneys’ court filings. The procedure did not provide for additional steps once the authorized doses had been given and the prisoner remained alive.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said afterward that its team followed every step of the state’s lawful, established protocol approved by the attorney general’s office. The department also said the lethal injection chemical had previously been effective. It did not explain why Pike survived or provide a detailed account of what happened to the drug after it was administered.
The episode was the second time in 2026 that Tennessee was unable to complete a scheduled execution. In the earlier case, execution workers were unable to establish suitable intravenous access and did not administer the lethal drugs. Pike’s case was different because the state proceeded with the injections, making the unanswered questions about the procedure especially significant for the review.
Pike’s attorneys had challenged the execution method before Wednesday, arguing that her medical conditions could increase the danger of a prolonged or painful procedure. They cited a blood disorder and concerns about intravenous access. After Pike survived, the attorneys said those warnings deserved greater weight and renewed their request that her sentence be commuted. The state has not accepted their explanation for why the execution failed.
The execution also followed a fast-moving series of court rulings. Pike was scheduled to die Wednesday morning, but the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily stopped the execution while considering a legal challenge. The state went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which allowed the execution to move forward later that day. Tennessee then proceeded with the lethal injection Wednesday evening.
Pike was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville and was sentenced to death the following year. She was 18 when the crime occurred. Her conviction and sentence went through years of state and federal review, and the U.S. Supreme Court had separately declined another request to stop her execution shortly before the scheduled date.
The failed execution also prolonged the wait for Slemmer’s family. Her mother witnessed Wednesday’s attempt and later criticized how the process unfolded. Pike would have been Tennessee’s first woman executed in more than 200 years, a circumstance that had already drawn national attention before the procedural failure shifted the focus toward the state’s ability to carry out its sentences.
Tennessee has not announced how long the independent review will take, what changes could follow or whether officials will eventually seek a new execution date for Pike. Until the review is complete, the state’s remaining 2026 execution has been postponed and its lethal injection system faces questions that officials have said must be answered before the process moves forward.
Author note: Last updated Oct. 2, 2026.