Why Tennessee Says Christa Pike's Execution Went by the Book

True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews · Oct 9, 2026 · 26m

Christa Pike's failed lethal injection is the second execution Tennessee couldn't finish in five months, and the state keeps choosing the method. The Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that a prisoner can only beat a method by proving the state could easily carry out a less painful one, and Tennessee's answer to hanging and firing squads is that it isn't equipped. When a firing squad bill came up in 2023, the department had already written that it didn't know where it would begin. Amherst professor Austin Sarat's research found lethal injection botched more often than any other method, and between…