Expert reveals the only way Christa Pike could be executed again after surviving first attempt

Christa Pike is currently in 'critical condition' in hospital following two unsuccessful attempts to administer the lethal injection. The state of Tennessee has not yet said whether it will ultimately try to execute her again, but one expert has revealed the 'only way' the 50 year old could go through the process again.

On Wednesday, September 30, Pike was given two doses of the drug pentobarbital. Journalists inside the execution chamber reportedly recalled the 50-year-old 'snoring loudly' for up to 40 minutes after being injected, and she was later taken to hospital, where it was said she was receiving life-saving care.

The prognosis is not yet known, but one expert has claimed that if Pike has sustained brain injuries, the state won't be able to execute her again.

“She can’t be executed if she is brain injured and doesn’t understand the proceedings,” Professor Deborah Denno of the Fordham School of Law told The New York Post.

Christa Pike remains 'critically ill' in hospital, her lawyers have said

“The United States Supreme Court recognized in a case involving a dementia patient in 2019 that you can’t execute someone who’s not aware of the punishment that they’re going to receive," he added.

If Pike does survive with no brain injuries, the expert told the outlet that she could 'have a strong argument for double jeopardy.'

Double jeopardy refers to the act of prosecuting a person more than once for the same offence. It is prohibited by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Should this happen, her death sentence for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer could potentially be commuted to life imprisonment.

In the months leading up to Pike's scheduled execution her lawyers had been fighting to have her death sentence commuted. They filed a clemency petition which detailed her traumatic childhood. The petition pointed to evidence her mother drank heavily while pregnant, which they say affected Pike's brain development and impulse control.

As well as this, it also documented her childhood abuse.

Pike was 18 years old when she brutally murdered Slemmer, and was charged in 1996 when she was 20.

Pike has spent over three decades on death row (WTVF)

If her execution had been successful, Pike would have been the first woman to have been executed in Tennessee in 200 years.

Her boyfriend at the time, Tadaryl Shipp, was also convicted of the murder. However, as he was 17 at the time, legally he could not be given the death sentence.

During an interview with CNN on Sunday, Pike's lawyer Stephen Ferrell said: "We don't know what her physical state will be, but it is clear that she has endured a tortuous attempt at executing her, and we had already asked that the governor commute her for many good reasons.

"She's spent over 30 years in prison, most of that in solitary confinement, only to be taken out and not executed, but tried to execute her.

"We don't know right now, and we may never know, what kind of torture she endured during that process," he added.

On Pike's botched execution, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Corrections said: "The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office.

"The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility."