Christa Pike Requests Clemency Ahead of September 30 Execution Date; Experts’ Amicus Brief Points to ​‘Substantial Risk’ of Re-traumatization

Lawyers for Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, filed a 226-page clemen­cy peti­tion with Governor Bill Lee, ask­ing him to com­mute her death sen­tence to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole ahead of her September 30 exe­cu­tion date. Ms. Pike’s clemen­cy peti­tion out­lines the case her team has built over decades of appeals: her actions at 18 years old can­not be sep­a­rat­ed from a child­hood marked by repeat­ed rape, sex­u­al abuse, and neglect that went unad­dressed by the adults and state sys­tems meant to pro­tect her. Once incar­cer­at­ed, Ms. Pike was diag­nosed with bipo­lar dis­or­der and post-trau­mat­ic stress disorder.

Notably, the state does not dis­pute the core fac­tu­al claims under­ly­ing Ms. Pike’s peti­tion, and dur­ing an August 13 hear­ing on Ms. Pike’s chal­lenge to the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col, the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office told the court the state does not con­test the abuse Ms. Pike suf­fered, adding that every­one in the court­room wished it had nev­er hap­pened ​“and that she was not on death row.” Much of Ms. Pike’s clemen­cy peti­tion doc­u­ments the child­hood abuse she expe­ri­enced, begin­ning with repeat­ed sex­u­al assault at the hands of her grandmother’s boyfriend between ages two and five. At age 11, she was raped by a neigh­bor who was arrest­ed and plead­ed no con­test to tak­ing ​“immoral, improp­er, and inde­cent lib­er­ties” with a child. He was not giv­en prison time and moved back into his home, just a minute down the block from Ms. Pike, who had to walk by his house every day to get to school. Ms. Pike told her moth­er about this assault, but she was not believed. At age 17, almost exact­ly a year before the crime in ques­tion, Ms. Pike was again attacked, assault­ed, and raped by a stranger. The man was nev­er iden­ti­fied. The peti­tion notes that as a young child, Ms. Pike drew a graph­ic pic­ture at school hint­ing at what was hap­pen­ing to her; her par­ents were called in, but as the peti­tion notes, no one inves­ti­gat­ed any further. 

Attorneys also point to evi­dence that Ms. Pike’s moth­er drank heav­i­ly dur­ing preg­nan­cy, which they say con­tributed to frontal lobe brain dam­age lat­er linked by experts to her bipo­lar dis­or­der diag­no­sis. Combined with undi­ag­nosed PTSD, the peti­tion argues the untreat­ed ill­ness­es left Ms. Pike unable to ​“put the brakes on” as a planned con­fronta­tion with Colleen Slemmer esca­lat­ed into a killing. The peti­tion also argues Ms. Pike’s death sen­tence is an out­lier by Tennessee’s own stan­dards. Of more than 200 peo­ple sen­tenced to death in the state’s mod­ern era, only eight — includ­ing Ms. Pike — were 18 at the time of their offense. The death sen­tences of the oth­er sev­en peo­ple in that group, all men, have all since been vacat­ed, leav­ing no oth­er defen­dant 18 years old at the time of the crime on death row. The peti­tion also notes that the aver­age age at the time of the crime among the 17 peo­ple Tennessee has exe­cut­ed in the mod­ern era of the death penal­ty is just under 29, with the youngest hav­ing been 23.

Ms. Pike is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on September 30, 2026. She would be the first woman exe­cut­ed in Tennessee in more than 200 years and the only per­son exe­cut­ed in the state for a crime com­mit­ted at age 18, 19, or 20 in the mod­ern death penal­ty era. In 1995, at age 18, Ms. Pike and two oth­er teens killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom they knew from Knoxville Job Corps. Ms. Pike was the only indi­vid­ual to be cap­i­tal­ly charged. Her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 years old, was inel­i­gi­ble for a death sen­tence and received a life sen­tence; he is now eli­gi­ble for parole, while Shadolla Peterson, who was 18, tes­ti­fied against Ms. Pike and Mr. Shipp and received probation.

Ms. Pike is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on September 30, 2026. She would be the first woman exe­cut­ed in Tennessee in more than 200 years and the only per­son exe­cut­ed in the state for a crime com­mit­ted at age 18, 19, or 20 in the mod­ern death penal­ty era. In 1995, at age 18, Ms. Pike and two oth­er teens killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom they knew from Knoxville Job Corps. Ms. Pike was the only indi­vid­ual to be cap­i­tal­ly charged. Her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 years old, was inel­i­gi­ble for a death sen­tence and received a life sen­tence; he is now eli­gi­ble for parole, while Shadolla Peterson, who was 18, tes­ti­fied against Ms. Pike and Mr. Shipp and received probation.

Of note, includ­ed in her clemen­cy appli­ca­tion is a let­ter from M. Christopher Coffey, who rep­re­sent­ed Mr. Shipp at his tri­al. Mr. Coffey, in his let­ter, called on Gov. Lee to grant Ms. Pike clemen­cy, not­ing that dis­par­i­ties in their sen­tences, ​“result­ing from their slight age dif­fer­ence, rather than their respec­tive role in this crime,” would make her exe­cu­tion unjust. Just days after Ms. Pike filed for clemen­cy, a group of United Nations human rights experts issued a state­ment call­ing on the U.S. and Tennessee to halt her exe­cu­tion and com­mute her death sen­tence. The experts said Ms. Pike’s ​“exe­cu­tion would mark the cul­mi­na­tion of a tra­jec­to­ry of severe phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal suf­fer­ing marked by child­hood abuse and near­ly three decades of soli­tary con­fine­ment.” They not­ed that while ​“vic­tims and their fam­i­lies are enti­tled to jus­tice and sup­port,” Ms. Pike’s exe­cu­tion ​“does not con­sti­tute repa­ra­tion. Justice and account­abil­i­ty must be pur­sued in accor­dance with inter­na­tion­al human rights law.” 

In an ami­cus brief filed as part of a chal­lenge to Ms. Pike’s exe­cu­tion, a group of sex­u­al vio­lence and trau­ma experts have called upon the Tennessee Supreme Court to issue a cer­tifi­cate of com­mu­ta­tion, explain­ing how the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col is like­ly to trig­ger severe, trau­mat­ic flash­backs for Ms. Pike. ​“Flashbacks are ​‘pow­er­ful and uncon­trol­lable re-enact­ments’ of past trau­ma,” the brief explains. It also notes that while dur­ing a flash­back, a sur­vivor is not phys­i­cal­ly expe­ri­enc­ing a rape or tor­ture, ​“their body relives the trau­ma as if they were. In all the ways that mat­ter to their expe­ri­ence of the event, the trau­ma is real.” The brief makes impor­tant note that ​“inva­sive pro­ce­dures, phys­i­cal pain, expo­sure or removal of cloth­ing, restraint, vul­ner­a­ble posi­tion­ing, loss of bod­i­ly auton­o­my, and extreme pow­er dif­fer­en­tials can trig­ger flash­backs to the orig­i­nal trau­ma,” and these expe­ri­ences ​“cre­ate an expo­nen­tial­ly great risk that Ms. Pike will relive her expe­ri­ences of child sex­u­al abuse and rape.”

In addi­tion to the ami­cus brief, a group of more than 100 orga­ni­za­tions and experts ded­i­cat­ed to end­ing vio­lence against women have called on Gov. Lee to com­mute Ms. Pike’s sen­tence to life in prison with­out parole. Their let­ter notes that, while her his­to­ry of abuse and rape does not excuse her crime, it offers ​“an expla­na­tion for how she came to com­mit that crime, a con­text for try­ing to under­stand what oth­er­wise might seem incom­pre­hen­si­ble.” As trau­ma expert Dr. Bethany Brand, who exam­ined Ms. Pike, not­ed, “[w]hat awaits [Ms. Pike] is not only death…It is, for Christa, a form of dying that is unique­ly and need­less­ly cru­el. And it is avoidable.”