Christa Pike’s lawyer demand her shackles are removed and she is given a phone while in hospital after failed lethal injection
Christa Pike’s lawyer pleaded for her shackles to be removed and for her to have a phone after she survived a botched execution attempt.
Pike, 50, is awake and ‘speaking limitedly’ one week after executioners attempted to give her two doses of lethal injections.
She was sentenced to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer.
During a court hearing on Tuesday, her lawyer, Luke Ihnen, asked the judge to remove the shackles on her hospital bed and give her access to a phone.
‘Up until yesterday, our client was unconscious, unable to communicate with counsel, unable to communicate with medical providers,’ Ihnen said.
‘TDOC (the Tennessee Department of Correction) continues to put up roadblocks, not only for the providers at the hospital, but for counsel, and so we would ask for an order granting continuous, liberal access to Ms Pike.
‘Based on our understanding, medical staff have asked that the shackles be removed and have been denied that request by TDOC. We would also amend our request and ask for that relief.’
The lawyers were in court for an emergency hearing on Pike’s request to preserve all evidence from her failed execution on September 30.
Christa Pike, 50, is awake and ‘speaking limitedly’ one week after executioners attempted to give her two doses of lethal injections
During a court hearing on Tuesday, her lawyer, Luke Ihnen, asked the judge to remove the shackles on her hospital bed and give her access to a phone
‘The state has made no promises that Ms Pike will not be subject to future execution,’ Ihnen said.
‘The evidence that we are seeking to preserve now is relevant to any future challenge that she makes. We don’t know what they have, because they won’t tell us.’
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