Tennessee pauses executions after Christa Pike survives lethal injection
What's next: Gov. Bill Lee ordered an independent review, while Pike's lawyers seek to commute her sentence to life without parole.
Tennessee halted executions for the rest of the year after death row inmate Christa Pike survived a Sept. 30 lethal injection and later returned to prison. Pike, 50, was hospitalized in critical condition after two doses of pentobarbital and was discharged at the end of last month. In her first public statement since the failed execution, she said she remains in physical and emotional pain. Bill Lee ordered an independent review to determine what went wrong and said Pike's sentence would likely remain in place unless courts rule otherwise. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.