US Supreme Court Clears Tennessee Execution of Christa Pike
The ruling allows Tennessee to carry out its first execution of a woman in more than two centuries. Three liberal justices dissented from the Supreme Court’s decision.
Earlier in the day, the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay shortly before Pike’s scheduled execution, citing issues raised by her legal team. The Supreme Court later removed the stay after Tennessee appealed the decision.
Pike, 50, had initially been scheduled to receive the death penalty at 10 a.m. local time Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Following the Supreme Court ruling, prison officials moved the execution to later in the evening.
Pike was convicted in 1996 and sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. She remains the only woman on Tennessee’s death row.
Her lawyers have maintained that jurors did not receive sufficient information about the severe abuse she experienced during childhood when deciding her sentence. The appeals court’s temporary order had provided additional time for those arguments to be considered.
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