Death row

Tennessee execution survivor Christa Pike released from hospital, returned to prison

Pike, 50, had been taken from the execution chamber to a Nashville hospital, unconscious and ‌with severe arm injuries after two injections failed to kill her at a maximum-security prison.

|ByREUTERS
Christa Gail Pike, 36, the only woman on Tennessee's Death Row, is pictured in this 2007 Tennessee Department of Correction booking photograph obtained by Reuters March 22, 2012.
A picture taken on December 4, 2007 shows death row inmate Christa Pike entering a Knox County Criminal Court in Knoxville, Tennessee, US., obtained by Reuters on September 30, 2026.

After botched execution attempt, death row inmate Christa Pike awakes 'angry and confused'

She is the first person known to have survived a "completed execution attempt" in the US, her lawyers say, calling it a violation of the Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments.

|ByREUTERS
A picture taken on December 4, 2007 shows death row inmate Christa Pike entering a Knox County Criminal Court in Knoxville, Tennessee, US., obtained by Reuters on September 30, 2026.

Tennessee prison chief resigns after second failed execution this year

Department of Correction commissioner Frank Strada said that although he believes his agency followed proper execution protocol, "stepping aside is in the best interest of Tennesseans."

|ByREUTERS
Christa Gail Pike, 36, the only woman on Tennessee's Death Row, is pictured in this 2007 Tennessee Department of Correction booking photograph obtained by Reuters March 22, 2012.

Tennessee fails to execute Christa Pike after two lethal injection attempts

Notably, this is the second failed execution attempt in the state of Tennessee in 2026. Pike, 50, was set to be executed for the 1995 murder of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer.

|ByREUTERS

First US federal execution in 17 years carried out on white supremacist

Daniel Lewis Lee was convicted of murdering a family of Jewish descent in 1996.

JULY 14, 2020ByDONNA RACHEL EDMUNDS
Reverend Sylvester Edwards, President of the Terre Haute NAACP, stands near the Federal Correctional Institution, Terre Haute, to express his opposition to the death penalty and execution of Daniel Lewis Lee. July 13, 2020

Jewish inmate claims judge was antisemitic, wins stay of execution

In May, Halprin said in an appeal that the judge who sentenced him in 2003, Vickers Cunningham, referred to him using anti-Semitic slurs, including “f****n’ Jew” and “g*****n k**e.”

OCTOBER 7, 2019ByMARCY OSTER/JTA
Prison, death row (illustrative)

Jewish death row inmate appeals to Supreme Court

“Texas made an antisemitic judge the sole arbiter of whether a Jewish defendant facing the death penalty would get a fair trial before a fair tribunal,” said his attorney, Tivon Schardl.

OCTOBER 5, 2019ByJOSEFIN DOLSTEN/JTA
Prison, death row (illustrative)