A Knox County court is pre­sid­ing over a mul­ti-day evi­den­tiary hear­ing to deter­mine whether Tennessee’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col can be con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly used to exe­cute Christa Pike, the only woman on the state’s death row. Ms. Pike is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on September 30. The hear­ing, which began on August 11 and is expect­ed to last sev­er­al days, is being held by Senior Judge W. Mark Ward, who was appoint­ed by the Tennessee Supreme Court to serve as spe­cial mas­ter in the case. 

Ms. Pike’s attor­neys filed a motion in June 2026, fol­low­ing the botched exe­cu­tion attempt of Tony Carruthers, argu­ing that the state is not equipped to car­ry out Ms. Pike’s exe­cu­tion in a man­ner con­sis­tent with the U.S. and Tennessee Constitutions, point­ing to what they describe as her ​“unique phys­i­cal, med­ical, and psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tions.” The Tennessee Supreme Court direct­ed Judge Ward to exam­ine sev­er­al issues raised by defense counsel.

“As we all saw with Tony Carruthers, the State does not have the qual­i­fied, trained per­son­nel in place to car­ry out Christa’s exe­cu­tion in a way that will not lead to a grue­some spec­ta­cle. We plan to make those argu­ments to the Court and are con­fi­dent Judge Ward will share our assess­ment that Christa’s exe­cu­tion as planned is inher­ent­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and must be enjoined.”

Luke Ihnen, coun­sel for Christa Pike

Among these issues is whether Ms. Pike’s exe­cu­tion, which is to be car­ried out by an all-male exe­cu­tion team, will cause her suf­fer­ing and ter­ror giv­en her life­long his­to­ry of trau­ma from sex­u­al vio­lence­and her PTSD diag­no­sis. Ms. Pike’s attor­neys point to a doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of child­hood rape and sex­u­al vio­lence at the hands of adult men. They argue that she will be forced to relive her trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences and would face severe psy­cho­log­i­cal harm when an all-male team extracts her from her cell and restrains her for her execution. 

Judge Ward will also con­sid­er the impli­ca­tions of Ms. Pike’s med­ical con­di­tions, and how the pro­to­col does not account for her unique phys­i­cal and health con­di­tions. Ms. Pike has been diag­nosed with throm­bo­cy­to­sis, a blood con­di­tion her attor­neys argue could com­pli­cate place­ment of an IV line and increase her risk of need­less suf­fer­ing dur­ing the lethal injec­tion process and may result in a ​“bloody froth in the lungs.” Her coun­sel also argues that she has small veins that would make it dif­fi­cult to estab­lish an IV line. ​“The new pro­to­col fails to account for any unique phys­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics of [Ms. Pike] that may affect the effi­ca­cy of or the risk of harm caused by the new pro­to­col.” Attorneys for the state con­tend that Ms. Pike’s team falls ​“far short” of show­ing she will face seri­ous injury or suf­fer­ing from use of Tennessee’s current protocol.

As required by U.S. Supreme Court prece­dent, Ms. Pike has pro­posed alter­na­tive meth­ods of exe­cu­tion, includ­ing the use of a ​“but­ter­fly” 23-gauge nee­dle which her coun­sel states if ​“insert­ed by qual­i­fied and trained med­ical staff, is a fea­si­ble and read­i­ly imple­ment­ed alter­na­tive that sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces the sub­stan­tial risk of unnec­es­sary pain and suf­fer­ing posed by the cur­rent pro­to­col.” Ms. Pike pro­pos­es hang­ing as a sec­ond alter­na­tive method of exe­cu­tion, not­ing the state’s last exe­cu­tion of a women was car­ried out by this means, and that the method has nev­er been declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. ​“Hanging sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces a sub­stan­tial risk of unnec­es­sary and severe or super­added pain, ter­ror, and dis­grace when com­pared to the cur­rent pro­to­col,” writes Ms. Pike’s coun­sel. Judge Ward is required to sub­mit his find­ings to the Tennessee Supreme Court by August 21, with objec­tions due by August 28.

Ms. Pike is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on September 30, 2026, and 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 the Knoxville Job Corps. Ms. Pike was the only indi­vid­ual to be cap­i­tal­ly charged. Her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 years old, received a life sen­tence, and is now eli­gi­ble for parole, while Shadolla Peterson, who was 18, tes­ti­fied against Ms. Pike and Mr. Shipp and received probation. 

This week’s evi­den­tiary hear­ing recalls the pro­ce­dure recent­ly fol­lowed in Alabama when a fed­er­al judge found the state’s nitro­gen gas exe­cu­tion pro­to­col uncon­sti­tu­tion­al fol­low­ing an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on a sim­i­lar ques­tion. Death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Jeffery Lee, who is now sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed two weeks before Ms. Pike, chal­lenged Alabama’s nitro­gen gas pro­to­col as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly cru­el. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit found the pro­to­col cre­at­ed an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al risk of severe suf­fer­ing, the case was remand­ed, where U.S. District Court Judge Emily Marks con­sid­ered Mr. Lee’s pro­posed alter­na­tive method of the fir­ing squad. Judge Marks first found that the state’s nitro­gen gas pro­to­col ​“presents a ​‘sub­stan­tial risk of seri­ous harm’ — severe pain over and above death itself,” and that Mr. Lee’s pro­posed alter­na­tive, a fir­ing squad, was a fea­si­ble method of exe­cu­tion that would sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce that risk. The Eleventh Circuit upheld that rul­ing and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to inter­vene, though the injunc­tion did not pre­vent Alabama from pur­su­ing Mr. Lee’s exe­cu­tion by anoth­er available method. 

Just as Judge Marks’ injunc­tion rest­ed on evi­dence devel­oped through a for­mal hear­ing, Judge Ward’s find­ings will be based on wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny and med­ical, psy­cho­log­i­cal, and pro­ce­dur­al evi­dence pre­sent­ed over the course of Ms. Pike’s evidentiary hearing. 

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Sources

John Jarnagin and Kaitlyn Walsh, LIVE: Hearing to review planned exe­cu­tion of Christa Pike, only woman in death row in Tennessee, con­tin­ues, WVLT, August 10, 2026; John North, Watch Live: Christa Pike’s chal­lenge of state’s exe­cu­tion method starts Tuesday, set to go sev­er­al days, WBIR, August 10, 2026; Keith Sharon, Special mas­ter appoint­ed to review Christa Pike’s exe­cu­tion plan, The Tennessean, July 27, 2026; Josh Jarnagin, Only woman on death row in Tennessee to chal­lenge state’s lethal injec­tion process, WVLT, July 24, 2026.