A legal expert has argued that executing Christa Pike after she survived two doses of lethal-injection drugs during a single execution attempt could violate the constitutional protection against double jeopardy, raising new questions about whether Tennessee can try to put the death row inmate to death again. Deborah Denno, a criminologist and professor at Fordham University School of Law who specializes in the death penalty, told Newsweek that Pike’s case is fundamentally different from previous instances in which prisoners survived an attempted execution. She argued that Tennessee officials carried out every step of the procedure they intended to perform on September 30, when Pike was administered two doses of pentobarbital but remained alive.
The execution attempt lasted several hours before officials halted the procedure and transported Pike to a hospital. Her survival has raised questions about what happens when a state attempts to carry out a death sentence but the prisoner remains alive. Although the Supreme Court has previously permitted a second execution attempt after an initial failure, Denno said the circumstances of Pike’s case could provide grounds for a different legal argument.
Newsweek reached out to the Tennessee Department of Corrections and Tennessee State Attorney General's Office for comment via email. The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment protects against being prosecuted or punished twice for the same offense. Whether it would prevent Tennessee from attempting to execute Pike again has not been decided by a court.
Denno said Pike’s lawyers could argue that the state has already carried out the punishment because officials completed the intended execution procedure, including administering the drugs twice. A death sentence is ordinarily understood as a sentence to death, not simply to an attempt at execution. The fact that officials administered the drugs does not automatically establish that the punishment has legally been completed.
Nevertheless, Denno believes the distinction between Pike’s case and earlier failed executions is important. They did it twice,” she said. The double-jeopardy argument is a potential legal challenge, not an established bar to another execution.
The most significant Supreme Court precedent is Louisiana ex rel. Resweber, decided in 1947. Willie Francis, a 17-year-old Black teenager convicted of murder in Louisiana, survived an attempt to execute him in the electric chair after the apparatus malfunctioned.
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