Tennessee’s prisons chief resigns after failed Christa Pike execution, governor says

Inmate remained hospitalized and on ventilator as of Thursday in Nashville hospital, according to court filing from her attorneys

Author of the article:

Washington Post

Alex Horton

Published Oct 03, 2026  •  2 minute read

This handout picture dated Jan. 12, 2023, provided by the Tennessee Department of Correction, shows death row inmate Christa Pike. The state of Tennessee attempted to execute Pike on Sept. 30, 2026 — which would have marked the first execution of a woman in the state in more than 200 years — but the lethal injection ultimately failed after she survived two doses of the drug. Photo by HANDOUT /Tennessee Department of Correcti

See more Toronto Sun on Google — save as a Preferred Source

Article content

The Tennessee prison chief has resigned after the botched execution of Christa Pike earlier this week, Gov. Bill Lee (R) said Saturday. After two doses of lethal injection drugs rendered Pike unconscious, Lee had earlier ordered a third-party review and halted all scheduled executions in the state.

Article content

Article content

Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada offered his resignation and will step down sometime this month, Lee said in a statement, after the failed execution on Wednesday.

“Commissioner Strada has served with integrity, and I appreciate his willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment,” Lee said.

Pike remained hospitalized and on a ventilator as of Thursday in a Nashville hospital, according to a court filing from her attorneys. Doctors worked to remove pentobarbital from her system after she arrived with both arms “swollen, burned, and blistered,” the filing said.

Second botched execution this year

Pike’s botched execution was the second this year under Strada. In May, the execution of convicted murderer Tony Carruthers was called off after personnel could not establish a backup IV line, as required by the state’s execution protocol. It left him bleeding and in pain, his attorney said, and Lee granted him a one-year reprieve.

Article content

Article content

“The resignation of Commissioner Strada is justified, but it does nothing to help Christa now,” her attorneys said in a statement. “What happened to her Wednesday reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one person. We hope the Governor’s call for a full, independent review will expose the profound problems within Tennessee’s entire death penalty system.”

Read More

1. 

   What happens next after Christa Pike survived two doses of lethal injection?

2. 

   EXECUTIONER’S WRONG: Christa Pike latest death penalty mistake

Strada defended his agency’s role, saying he believes the corrections department “carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol.”

Dorinda Carter, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Correction, declined to respond to questions about Strada’s resignation and whether the failed execution of Carruthers also played a role.

Pike had been sentenced to death for her role in killing Colleen Slemmer in 1995, when both of them were teenagers. Pike and two other teens lured Slemmer into the woods in Knoxville, where they tortured and killed her, according to court filings.

Article content

Pike’s legal team alleged state officials did not follow their own lethal injection protocol while trying to execute Pike with pentobarbital. The execution team acted incompetently and showed “deliberate indifference to her basic medical needs,” Pike’s lawyers wrote.

Calls to abolish death penalty in U.S.

Advocates have seized on the high-profile failure to call for the abolishment of the death penalty across the country. The number of executions has declined in the past two decades, coinciding with more states banning the practice.

Community leaders and attorneys have called on Lee and and other Tennessee officials to address “huge problems with the competency of the state’s execution process,” said Laura Porter, executive director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty.

“They were ignored,” Porter said. “Hopefully this is the beginning of accountability and an end to secrecy that enables these debacles.”

— Mark Berman, Katie Mettler and Brady Dennis contributed to this report.

Article content