Women

For updates on the botched execution attempt of Christa Pike on September 30, please see our full story here. On September 28, 2026, Governor Bill Lee denied a clemency request from death-sentenced prisoner Christa Pike, who is scheduled to be executed on September 30. Gov. Lee announced, “[a]fter deliberate consideration of Christa Gail Pike’s request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case,” he said he would uphold “the sentence of the State of Tennessee,” noting he did not…

Nearly two years after District Judge Arturo Nelson declared Texas death-sentenced prisoner Melissa Lucio “actually innocent,” the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) refused to accept the recommendation of the lower court to overturn her conviction. A closely divided TCCA declined “to adopt any of the habeas court’s findings and conclusions,” which the majority of the court wrote “exclusively reflect [Ms. Lucio’s] interpretation of the evidence and are often unsupported.” In its 5 – 4…

For updates on the September 30, 2026 failed execution attempt of Christa Pike, please see our full story here. 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…

UPDATE: Nathalie Greenfield, an attorney for Ms. Andrew, told KGOU that her team would be filing an appeal to the United States Supreme Court within the next 90 days. On August 14, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit declined to reconsider Brenda Andrew’s case and the totality of the evidence in determining whether her trial was fundamentally unfair — leaving in place a panel ruling that found gender-biased evidence at her trial did not…