Christa Pike ‘conscious and speaking’ after botched US execution – Watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\nWhat happened to Pike and Carruthers is a reminder that things frequently go wrong in executions, even if in almost all cases the problem is resolved and the execution is completed.<\/p>\n
Indeed, in the past 80 years, only eight other people have had experiences like Carruthers\u2019 and Pike\u2019s and survived execution attempts.<\/p>\n
Four of those execution \u201csurvivors\u201d were killed by a second execution attempt, while others escaped that fate. Three others died on death row; one of them after the state agreed not to try to execute him a second time, and one of them is still alive and awaiting his fate.<\/p>\n
Having studied capital punishment for decades, I know the Eighth Amendment\u2019s prohibition of \u201ccruel and unusual punishment\u201d has shaped constitutional discussions around failed executions. But so far, courts have not stood in the way when state governments have wanted to try to execute the same man again.<\/p>\n
Not just a lethal injection problem<\/p>\n
Carruthers and Pike survived lethal injection attempts, but execution failures have not been confined to that method. A look at the history of hanging reveals several instances in which it failed.<\/p>\n
In 1833, for example, a hanging in Pennsylvania failed to kill Charles Getter, who had been sentenced to death for murdering his wife.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rope was placed around Getter\u2019s neck. The hangman drew it up fast,\u201d true crime author Amanda Howard notes. \u201cGetter struggled and kicked, choking, before the rope broke, throwing him to the ground.\u201d However, Getter did not die.<\/p>\n
The executioner sent someone to look for a stronger rope. This time, the rope did not break and Getter met \u201cthe fate of a murderer.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1894, Will Purvis\u2019 hanging also failed when the noose loosened. Instead of dying from a broken neck, Purvis survived, suffering only rope burns on his neck.<\/p>\n
Unlike Getter, Purvis returned to prison contending that he was innocent. His lawyers unsuccessfully tried to get the courts to prevent a second execution attempt. Purvis remained behind bars until 1898, when Mississippi\u2019s governor pardoned him. Purvis is the only execution survivor ever to receive such grace.<\/p>\n
In the late 19th century, the electric chair replaced hanging as the country\u2019s primary execution method, but it did not prevent failed executions. At least once in the 20th century, the electric chair also failed to kill.<\/p>\n
In the spring of 1946, the state of Louisiana tried to use it in the execution of Willie Francis, a 16-year-old Black youth who had been convicted of murdering a local sheriff. At the time, the electric chair was said to be the most humane execution method.<\/p>\n
But what Francis experienced hardly seemed humane. When the electric current reached him, \u201cHe started going into convulsions.\u201d The executioner \u201cflipped the switch again,\u201d but Francis was not killed.<\/p>\n
Later, like Purvis, Francis turned to the courts to try to stave off another execution attempt. The decision in his case would set the precedent for how judges would deal with other execution survivors.<\/p>\n
An accident?<\/p>\n
In January 1947, months after Francis survived the electrocution, the US Supreme Court gave Louisiana permission to try again. The justices split, with five giving Louisiana the green light and four dissenting.<\/p>\n
Justice Stanley Reed\u2019s majority opinion emphasised that what had happened to Francis was accidental and that, without malicious intent, there was no violation of the Eighth Amendment. As he put it, \u201cThe fact that an unforeseeable accident prevented the prompt consummation of the sentence cannot, it seems to us, add an element of cruelty to its subsequent execution.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/in-this-image-from-video-provided-by-wbir-tv-christa-pike-cr-TZT2H77N5FCVDBWQSTVYICYOQY.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
In this image from video provided by WBIR-TV, Christa Pike cries after being sentenced to death on March 30, 1996 in Knoxville (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
In his view, \u201cThe cruelty against which the constitution protects a convicted man is cruelty \u2018inherent\u2019 in the method of punishment, not the \u2018necessary suffering\u2019 involved in any method employed to extinguish life humanely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Justice Harold Burton spoke for the dissenting judges. As he put it: \u201cThe intent of the executioner cannot lessen the torture or excuse the result.\u201d A second execution would offend the \u201cfundamental instincts of civilised man\u201d.<\/p>\n
It would be several decades until another person survived an execution. But the pace of failed executions has only picked up since the start of the 21st century.<\/p>\n
21st century execution survivors<\/p>\n
From 2009 until May 2026, six people survived failed lethal injection attempts. Romell Broom became the first 21st-century execution survivor when in 2009 the state of Ohio gave up after trying for two hours to find a usable vein in which to secure an IV line.<\/p>\n
In his case, the Ohio Supreme Court, relying on the Francis precedent, decided that \u201cThe insertion of IV lines is merely a preparatory step to the execution.\u201d In its view, Broom\u2019s punishment had not really begun. Therefore, a second execution would not violate the prohibition on double jeopardy or on the imposition of cruel punishment.<\/p>\n
But before Ohio could again attempt to execute Broom, he died on death row in December 2020 after contracting Covid-19. Another 21st-century execution survivor, Alva Campbell, also died on death row.<\/p>\n
In 2018, Doyle Hamm reached an agreement with the state of Alabama stating that he would not be subject to a second execution after executioners couldn\u2019t access a vein during an attempted lethal injection. Hamm died from cancer in 2021.<\/p>\n
However, Alabama succeeded in executing two other execution survivors, Alan Miller and Kenneth Smith, both in 2024. In both cases, they had survived failed lethal injections.<\/p>\n
And Thomas Creech is, like Carruthers and Pike, still alive after lethal injection failure, this time in Idaho. It\u2019s not clear if and when Idaho will try again to put him to death. If it does, the state will use the firing squad, which became its primary execution method on July 1, 2026.<\/p>\n
Carruthers\u2019 fate<\/p>\n
As Carruthers awaits his fate in Tennessee, defence lawyers in the state have asked Governor Lee to halt all executions pending a thorough review of its protocol.<\/p>\n
And as the Death Penalty Information Center reports, \u201cattorneys from the Federal Public Defender\u2019s Office filed a new federal lawsuit \u2026 to prevent Tennessee from attempting to execute Mr Carruthers a second time.\u201d<\/p>\n
That suit builds on litigation filed in March 2025 alleging that the administration of lethal injection in Tennessee inflicts cruel and unusual punishment.<\/p>\n
Only time will tell if the judges who hear those cases will be persuaded by what Justice Burton wrote in the Francis case: \u201cAlthough the failure of the first attempt, in the present case was unintended, the reapplication of the electric current will be intentional \u2026 The present case demonstrates that, today, two separate applications are sufficiently \u2018cruel and unusual\u2019 to be prohibited.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the state, Burton explained, seeks to execute someone, it has a duty \u201cto make sure that there (is) no failure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Author: Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College.<\/p>\n
This article was republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons licence. <\/p>\nThe morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including murder charges after the death of doctor to the royal family, and how an Indian cop clung onto a speeding car for 40km. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christa Pike survived an execution attempt in Tennessee on Sept. 30, 2026, after receiving two doses of pentobarbital,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[67,42,43,64,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-624027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}