Tennessee Halts Executions After Inmate Survives Lethal Injection

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has halted the state’s remaining executions for 2026 after officials failed to carry out the lethal injection of death row inmate Christa Gail Pike, an episode a capital punishment expert described as unprecedented.

Update: Prisons chief resigns

Update (October 3, 2026): Gov. Bill Lee said Saturday that Correction Commissioner Frank Strada will step down later in October following the botched lethal injection of Christa Pike. Lee ordered an independent review of the failed attempt. Strada, appointed in January 2023, said in a statement that he believes the department followed established protocol but that “stepping aside is in the best interest” of Tennesseans as the review begins.

Pike’s attorneys said Friday she remains unconscious and intubated on a ventilator in a Nashville-area hospital, with significant injuries to both arms, and that hospital staff were working to clear pentobarbital from her system. They argued the IV team did not recognize improperly placed lines or blown veins. The department has said it followed the state’s lawful execution protocol. Pike’s lawyers called Strada’s resignation “justified” but said it “does nothing to help Christa now,” and sought a court order preserving evidence from the attempt. Lee had already halted remaining 2026 executions after the failed procedure.

Prison staff at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution administered two doses of pentobarbital to Pike on Wednesday evening. She survived and was taken to an off-site medical facility. Her condition has not been publicly disclosed. Lee said he ordered a comprehensive third-party review “to determine exactly what occurred.”

“I’m highly disappointed, along with Tennesseans, about what happened last night,” Lee told reporters Thursday at a separate public event. He said lawful executions are among the state’s “most serious responsibilities” and that the attempt did not meet expectations that a court-imposed sentence be carried out legally, constitutionally and effectively.

Pike, 50, was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, committed when Pike was 18. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than two centuries. An initial morning schedule was delayed after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay by a 2-1 vote; the U.S. Supreme Court later lifted that stay, and the procedure proceeded at night.

Pike’s lawyers filed emergency motions late Wednesday seeking an immediate halt, arguing she remained conscious, still had a heartbeat and was experiencing unnecessary suffering in violation of constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. They had previously raised concerns about her medical history and vein access.

The Tennessee Department of Correction said it followed the state’s established protocol approved by the attorney general’s office and that the protocol does not authorize steps beyond those already taken. The department added that the lethal drug used in the protocol has previously been effective.

Lee’s pause affects the one remaining execution on Tennessee’s 2026 calendar, including the planned Dec. 3 date for Gary Sutton. It is the second failed execution attempt in the state this year. In May, officials called off the execution of Tony Carruthers after they could not establish intravenous access; Carruthers received a one-year reprieve.

Tennessee switched in 2024 from a three-drug lethal injection series to a single-drug pentobarbital protocol, following earlier problems with drug testing and preparation. Lee has not named the outside reviewers who will examine Wednesday’s failure. Until that review is complete, no further executions will proceed in the state this year.

Update: October 7, 2026

Texas executed Jamaal Howard, 46, on Wednesday evening at the state prison in Huntsville, the first execution in the United States since Tennessee’s failed attempt to put Pike to death on Sept. 30, the Associated Press reported. Howard was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m. local time after receiving pentobarbital. He had been convicted of fatally shooting convenience store clerk Vickie Swartout during a 2000 robbery.

Howard’s attorneys had argued, unsuccessfully, that he faced risks similar to Pike’s because Texas and Tennessee both use pentobarbital, and that he was intellectually disabled. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected challenges to the quality of the state’s execution drugs, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene. It was the 30th execution in the U.S. this year.

Pike’s lawyers, who continue to press for information about what went wrong in Tennessee, said she had been unconscious in a hospital after the attempt but was awake and speaking by Tuesday, according to the AP. Tennessee’s one remaining execution scheduled for this year remains on hold.