US execution survivor critically ill, on ventilator, lawyer says

The woman who survived a botched execution attempt in a US prison is still hospitalized in critical condition and on a ventilator, her lawyer says as he calls for her death sentence to be commuted to life in prison.

Tennessee’s prison chief resigned Saturday after convicted murderer Christa Pike, 50, survived two lethal injections of pentobarbital, a drug that suppresses nervous system activity.

The case gained national attention and raised questions about capital punishment in the United States and the methods used to carry it out.

“She’s still in the hospital on a ventilator, critically ill,” Pike’s attorney Stephen Ferrell says on CNN. “We don’t really know the prognosis yet, and may not know for several days.”

Ferrell, who has been unable to see his client, says doctors are still trying to rid her body of the drug while she remains under guard at the hospital.

He urges Governor Bill Lee to show leniency.

“I think, at the very least, the governor should commute Ms. Pike’s death sentence to a life sentence,” Ferrell says. “We don’t know what her physical state will be, but it is clear that she has endured a torturous attempt at executing her.”

Pike’s case sparked debate over the death penalty for young offenders, as she was 18 when she and her boyfriend beat and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer at a job training camp in 1995.