U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Last-Minute Appeal to Halt Tennessee Execution
The Supreme Court denied a petition to stop the execution of Christa Pike, who is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday, making her the first woman executed in Tennessee in over two centuries.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in the scheduled execution of Christy Pike, a Tennessee inmate convicted of murder in 1996. Pike, 50, is set to be executed by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville at 11:00 EDT on Wednesday.
Her legal team filed a last-minute petition seeking a stay of execution, arguing that an 18-year-old's brain is not fully mature and that she was too young at the time of the crime to merit the death penalty. The Court rejected the request, leaving the execution to proceed.
Governor Bill Lee also refused to grant clemency, stating he would not intervene in the scheduled execution. Pike's case would mark the first execution of a woman in Tennessee since the early 19th century and one of only 18 female executions in the United States since the 1970s.
"An 18-year-old brain is not an adult brain," Pike's attorneys said, emphasizing the defendant's age at the time of the crime.
Pike was convicted for the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow participant at a job-training camp for troubled teens. The murder attracted extensive media coverage at the time. Pike maintains she did not carve a pentagram into the victim's chest, a detail that was widely reported.
The execution proceeds as scheduled, with no further legal avenues remaining.