Christa Pike execution to go through U.S Supreme Court rules after federal court halting lethal injection earlier on Wednesday is overturned as last minute hopes of reprieve dashed.
Condemned woman’s case raises questions of the constitutionality of lethal injection, capital punishment and Tennessee’s resolve to administer the death penalty reflecting ‘crime and punishment’ values.
A Tennessee woman set to be executed by lethal injection had her scheduled capital punishment halted just one hour before it was to take place only for the U.S Supreme Court before the end of Wednesday deciding to ultimately side with the state and stay the execution.
Christa Pike, 50, who’d been set to be put to death for the 1996 capital murder of a then fellow student was given a stay of execution by the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit around 9am CT Wednesday after a judge agreed to consider whether childhood sexual abuse she suffered was taken into account when she was first sentenced.
Christa Pike’s execution was halted just one hour before she was set to be put to death. pic.twitter.com/BIgXqxlqru
— 💧 (@Melodysweetn) September 30, 2026
Tennessee woman execution halted and then re-instated by U.S Supreme Court
Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch described her decision as a ‘short stay of execution’ while the argument is reviewed The Tennessean reported earlier on Wednesday.
Pike had been set to be administered lethal injection for 10am CT/ 11am ET, September 30 at Riverbend Maxiumum Security Institution in Nashville, only for the planned execution to be halted.
In a dramatic display of events, the U.S Supreme Court just before 6 p.m, cleared the way for Tennessee to carry out the scheduled death sentence, the Tennessean reported, Wednesday evening.
Stephen Ferrell of the Federal Defenders Services of Eastern Tennessee said that ‘serious concerns’ had halted Pike’s planned execution. The execution would be the first execution of a female in that state in 200 years.
The stay of execution led to the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office asking the US Supreme Court to lift the pause on her execution, calling the decision a ‘technical issue’. Asserting its desire to impose the ‘scheduled punishment’ the office vowed to ‘advocate for the lawfully-imposed sentence,’ the nytimes reported.
Tennessee’s ‘strong interest in finality and the surviving victims’ right to closure require rejection,’ the state wrote in its filing.
Last ditch effort to halt execution
Leading up to her planned execution, Pike’s legal team argued she suffers from ‘unique physical, medical, and psychological conditions’ that should prevent her execution, as it would result in a torturous death and violate the Tennessee Constitution as well as the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
In August, Pike asked the court to consider allowing her to be put to death by the ‘less onerous’ method of hanging instead, last carried out in that state in 1913, WATE reported.
Currently, there are two methods of execution explicitly permitted under Tennessee law: lethal injection and electrocution. Pike’s defense had sought to challenge the constitutionality of the lethal injection which would’ve applied to her.
Crime history, trauma, politics
Pike was convicted at the age of 18 in March 1996 for the stabbing murder of Knoxville Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer to death.
She initially demanded she be spared a lethal injection because of her Buddhist beliefs. Earlier this month, she asked for an all-female firing squad to carry out her killing, with her lawyers citing the abuse she experienced as a child.
Her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, 17, and an accomplice, Shadolla Peterson, also helped lure Slemmer to a wooded area before torturing and slaying her.
Pike and Shipp were both found guilty of first-degree murder. She was sentenced to death, while Shipp received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. The then 17-year-old was spared capital punishment on account of technically not being an adult and only 17 at the time of the slaying.
Just hours before her planned execution, Pike refused her last meal, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction.
Inmates are typically given $20 to spend on their last meal, according to The Tennessean. The state still planned to provide Pike with a meal.
Her decision came after Governor Bill Lee denied her clemency request and the US Supreme Court declined to stop the execution. Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, also denied a request to allow Pike to serve out the remainder of her life in prison.
According to the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, Pike was a victim of child sexual abuse, multiple rapes and attempted suicide at age 12.
When she was 17, she was allegedly grabbed by a stranger by the side of the road and raped. Police never arrested a suspect.
She allegedly killed Colleen Slemmer almost one year to the day after the rape.
Crime and punishment values
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, previously said she wanted to watch her daughter’s murderer die while sitting in the front-row seat at her now halted execution.
She and other execution witnesses had gathered at the Nashville jail where she was to be put to death when the order to halt Pike’s death was issued.
A large media presence, including international reporters, also convened at the jail for the planned execution, according to The Tennessean.
Reflected Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, ‘the last-minute stay is a kind of high-wire balancing act, when the risks and stakes are at their most extreme.’
If Pike is indeed executed at a later date, she will be the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1819, and the first person executed who was 18 at the time of their crime in Tennessee since the death penalty was reinstated in 1972.
Only 18 women have been executed in the US since the 1970s, compared to 1,663 men.
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