The official in charge of the prison system in the US state of Tennessee has resigned just days after overseeing the botched execution of Christa Pike. The state’s governor, Bill Lee, announced on Saturday that Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada would step down from his role later this month, a decision Lee described as necessary after the stunning failure. A replacement for Strada was not announced.
Strada, who started his role in Tennessee three years ago, previously served as a top official in Arizona’s corrections department where multiple executions on his watch faced complications. He said he was resigning “in the best interest of Tennesseans” as an independent review examines what went wrong. Pike was transported from prison to hospital on Wednesday after surviving two injections of the drug pentobarbital, which Tennessee uses to execute prisoners.
Strada’s resignation was “justified”, Pike’s lawyers said in a statement. They argued problems with the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to flow into her body instead of her bloodstream. Pike was 18 years old when she was sentenced to death for the torture and murder of another young woman in 1995, becoming one of the youngest women to be sent to death row.
Lee has suspended all executions for the remainder of the year while the state investigates.
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