US Supreme Court allows execution of Christa Pike to go ahead
BBC • • nation
Key Points:
- The US Supreme Court has allowed the execution of Christa Pike, making her the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in over 200 years by overturning a last-minute reprieve from an appeals court.
- Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a crime she committed at age 18 alongside her then-boyfriend.
- Justice Brett Kavanaugh granted the order to vacate the stay of execution without providing an explanation, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized the decision for rushing the execution before Pike's legal challenges could be fully considered.
- Pike's legal team argued that the state's conflicting positions on her history of sexual abuse affected the fairness of her federal review, but the Supreme Court rejected her appeals twice in two days.
- The execution order is set to expire at midnight, and if not carried out by then, the Tennessee Supreme Court would need to set a new date.
