(The Center Square) – The resignation of Department of Corrections Commissioner Frank Strada and an investigation into the failed execution of Christa Pike may not answer all the questions about why the state has not carried out two executions this year, Pike’s attorneys said.
Pike was taken to a hospital on Wednesday evening after she remained alive after two doses of the execution drug pentobarbital. Pike’s chances for recovery and prognosis may not be known for several days, Stephen Ferrell, an assistant federal defender representing her, told CNN on Sunday.
Strada, who made $21,160 a month, or $253,920 annually, according to the Transparent Tennessee website, resigned on Saturday. His tenure began in January 2023. Strada led the department when the decision was made to use the single drug pentobarbital. Lee paused executions in 2022 to review the state’s death penalty protocols and tasked Strada with investigating the methods.
“I am confident the lethal injection process can proceed in compliance with departmental policy and state laws,” Strada said in a statement on Dec. 27, 2024, announcing the adoption of pentobarbital as the single execution drug.
Hours after Strada’s resignation, Gov. Bill Lee announced an independent review of what happened during Pike’s attempted execution.
U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton, who also reviewed the state’s lethal execution protocol in 2022, will handle the investigation, according to Lee’s office.
According to testimony and prosecutors, Pike was 18 in 1995 when she killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Prosecutors say Pike and two accomplices tortured, slashed and fatally beat her. All were part of a Job Corps training program in Knoxville.
A pentagram was carved into Slemmer’s chest. Investigators say Pike bragged of keeping a skull fragment as a “souvenir.”
She was also convicted of attempted murder in 2001 after trying to strangle another prisoner with a shoestring.
Lee, who leaves office in January, has not said if he will commute Pike’s death sentence. He paused executions for the remainder of the year.
Gary Wayne Sutton was scheduled for execution on Dec. 3. Sutton was convicted in connection with the 1992 deaths of two siblings. His uncle, who also received the death penalty, died of natural causes on death row, according to the Department of Corrections.
The governor granted a one-year reprieve to Tony Carruthers, who survived an execution in May. Carruthers was convicted of murder in 1996 for the deaths of Marcellos Anderson, his mother, Delois Anderson and Frederick Tucker, whose bodies were found in a Memphis cemetery.
The state successfully carried out the execution of Anthony Darrell Hines on Aug. 13 for the 1985 death of Catherine Jenkins, a motel maid in Kingston Springs.
Strada’s resignation does not change anything, said Kit Thomas, deputy chief of the Capital Habeas Unit Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Middle District of Tennessee.
“When Gov. Lee hired Strada to fix execution problems in Tennessee his problematic history of executions in Arizona was well known,” Thomas said in a statement. “Strada then oversaw the implementation of a new protocol that ignored the recommendations of the independent investigation and weakened protections leading to a string of problems in Tennessee, including this week’s horrific botched execution attempt and another one in May. Until there is transparency and accountability, botched executions will keep happening.”
The failed execution has become an issue in Tennessee’s gubernatorial race. Republican Marsha Blackburn called for the return of the electric chair. She said she would ensure that executions are carried out in a timely manner if elected.
“We need to prioritize justice for victims’ families,” Blackburn said in a social media post. “It is difficult for families when a perpetrator remains on death row for decades. Every trial and appeal forces them to relive that trauma and loss.”
House Speaker Cameron Sexton said state lawmakers will consider changing the execution method when they reconvene in January.
“We will look at all options – expanding the alternatives, and changing the current medications to include potassium chloride,” Sexton said on social media.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerri Green called for a moratorium on the death penalty.
“As a public defender, I’ve met a few too many people who were wrongfully convicted on death row who were later exonerated,” Green said on social media. “As governor, I would put a moratorium on all future executions. If we say we are pro-life, that means we must be anti-death penalty.”
