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After Christa Pike<\/a> survived Tennessee\u2019s failed attempt to execute her, the unsettled question of whether the state will try again could push Tennessee into uncharted legal territory, experts say.<\/p>\n Pike, 50, suffered burns and blisters to her arms and her prognosis remains uncertain after executioners tried to give her two lethal doses of pentobarbital<\/a>, her legal team said Wednesday. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. <\/p>\n Although other states have moved forward with attempting to execute inmates a second time, in those cases, the first try had been halted before any drug actually began flowing.<\/p>\n Outgoing Republican Gov. Bill Lee has paused executions in Tennessee and ordered an outside review of the failed Sept. 30 attempt to put Pike to death. His office did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on whether the state would try again to execute her.<\/p>\n Death penalty experts say it’s hard to know what will happen if the state decides to move forward with a second attempt.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether or not it would be lawful for the state of Tennessee to attempt to execute her again is a complex question that will take significant time, attention and analysis of her defense team, the prosecution team, the state government in Tennessee and multiple state and federal courts,\u201d said Stephen Johnson, a criminal defense attorney in Tennessee who is president-elect of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.<\/p>\n Pike regained consciousness<\/a> almost six days after the failed attempt to kill her. Her legal team had believed she was brain dead, but after she woke up, she was aware of what happened and was \u201cangry and confused,\u201d her lawyers said Wednesday.<\/p>\n Her attorneys will surely explore the medical and psychiatric impact of receiving two doses of the lethal injection drug and being on a ventilator for several days to determine if she is \u201cnow legally competent to even be executed,\u201d Johnson said. That will likely include neuropsychological and forensic psychiatric evaluations and potentially other medical tests, and then there would \u201cundoubtedly be significant litigation\u201d over those issues, which can take years, he said.<\/p>\n There have been dozens of troubled executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, including several attempts that did not end in death.<\/p>\n Alan Miller and Kenneth Smith both survived lethal injection attempts in Alabama in 2022. Both argued that a second execution attempt violated the Eighth Amendment\u2019s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment as applied to them individually, which courts found \u201cplausible\u201d in early litigation stages. However, the U.S. Supreme Court did not agree to decide this question, and both were ultimately executed by nitrogen gas in 2024.<\/p>\n Two other inmates, Thomas Creech of Idaho<\/a> and Tony Carruthers of Tennessee<\/a>, remain on death row after failed attempts to administer lethal injection drugs.<\/p>\n But Pike’s case is distinguishable from others where a second execution attempt was made because she \u201cbore the brunt of lethal drugs,\u201d said Jordan Steiker, co-director of the Capital Punishment Center at the University of Texas. He said other cases involved \u201cthe psychological trauma of facing an execution effort\u201d but not \u201cgrievous harm.\u201d<\/p>\n Louisiana executioners tried to put to death 17-year-old Willie Francis in 1946 but called off their efforts after an improperly prepared electric chair failed to kill him. <\/p>\n But he was executed by electrocution the following year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a second execution attempt did not violate double jeopardy under the Fifth Amendment or constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment, attributing part of its reasoning to the \u201cmalfunction\u201d of the electric chair. <\/p>\n The court notably said, \u201cAccidents happen for which no man is to blame.\u201d But a dissenting justice called the experience of being subjected to a second execution attempt \u201cdeath by installments.\u201d<\/p>\n It’s not clear whether this case would be viewed as controlling precedent because the Court has not revisited this ruling using its modern \u201cevolving standards of decency\u201d approach to the Eighth Amendment, Steiker said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I think the guide today would be whether or not it would be viewed as repulsive according to contemporary community standards to attempt a second execution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Experts said they are not aware of any state or federal statute that explicitly bars a second execution attempt after a first one fails.<\/p>\n John Mills, a lawyer who represents people facing the death penalty, said a crucial question would be whether a second attempt to execute Pike would amount to torture. <\/p>\n He said federal courts have declined to intervene in \u201cless egregious\u201d cases, but noted that Pike’s lawyers had previously warned that her medical conditions could complicate a lethal injection and make it agonizing. <\/p>\n \u201cFacing her death a second time having thought she was going to die and then instead being tortured raises a strong claim that a second attempt to kill her would amount to torture violating the Eighth Amendment,” Mills said.<\/p>\n Steiker said he believes Pike’s case would be \u201cuncharted territory\u201d if Tennessee moves forward with a second attempt.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most obvious way to avoid litigation over this would be for the governor to commute the sentence,” he said.<\/p>\n ____<\/p>\n Associated Press writers Kim Chandler in Nashville, Tennessee, and Anna Wilder in Austin, Texas, contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n