Updated at 10:45 p.m. EDT on Sept. 30
The Supreme Court on Wednesday night cleared the way for the execution of Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row. In a brief, unsigned order, the court lifted a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit that had paused Pike’s execution shortly before it was scheduled to take place on Wednesday morning.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the decision to lift the stay of execution, in a three-page opinion that was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sotomayor wrote that she saw “no reason to short-circuit the ordinary process of appellate review, particularly in light of the grave consequences of an erroneous decision.”
Pike was convicted and sentenced to death for the brutal 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. She sought post-conviction relief in state court, arguing that at her sentencing her trial counsel should have presented evidence regarding the sexual abuse that she suffered as a child. Her efforts to obtain state and federal post-conviction relief were unsuccessful.
On Tuesday, Pike filed a motion in federal court to reopen her federal post-conviction case. She pointed to the state’s recent concession – at odds, she said, with its prior contentions – that she “was a teenaged survivor of child sexual abuse and rape who was struggling with unmedicated bipolar disorder and PTSD at the time of her crime.”
By a vote of 2-1, the 6th Circuit on Wednesday morning put Pike’s execution on hold to give that court time to consider the arguments made by Pike and the state.
The state came quickly to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to lift the lower court’s order. It called Pike’s latest filing an “abusive, tactical delay” and “nothing more than an attempt to relitigate the merits of” a claim that had already been rejected.
Pike countered that, even if the lower courts ultimately do not grant her motion to reopen the federal case, “[a]t the very least,” the Supreme Court “should allow the Sixth Circuit to issue its decision.” “It is inconceivable,” she said, “that in the 21st century, the criminal justice system is poised to execute a survivor of rape and child sexual abuse whose jury never had the opportunity to consider those facts in weighing the defendant’s moral culpability.”
Shortly before 7 p.m. EDT, the Supreme Court granted the state’s request. It did not provide any explanation for its decision.
Sotomayor wrote that the majority’s decision to lift the 6th Circuit’s order “interferes with the Sixth Circuit’s routine administrative handling of a capital case and unnecessarily prevents that court from giving due consideration to Pike’s claim.” “Tennessee’s desire to expedite Pike’s execution by a few days or even weeks cannot outweigh her ‘fundamental interest in [her] own life,’” Sotomayor said.
A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Correction told the Associated Press that “it would proceed with Pike’s execution Wednesday night ahead of a midnight cutoff on the state’s execution order.”
Later on Wednesday, the AP reported that “Tennessee officials were unable to put” Pike to death, citing media witnesses. While the execution appeared to still be underway, Pike’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court to intervene and “immediately halt and stay the execution, saying she was in ‘unnecessary agony’ and it was violating her right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment.” The AP noted that “[t]hey also filed motions in” a federal district court and the 6th Circuit.
