Christa Pike's attorneys said the 50-year-old woman has been discharged from the hospital and returned to the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Tennessee, where she has served 30 years, after surviving the state's attempt to execute her by lethal injection. Pike had been hospitalized since Sept. 30, when officials administered two doses of pentobarbital in an effort to put her to death.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of her fellow student Colleen Slemmer. Her lawyers said she is still receiving medical care in prison and that they will monitor her recovery. They also expressed gratitude to the first responders and medical teams who treated her.
The failed execution has drawn attention to capital punishment in the US, amid a separate controversy over plans to livestream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan. The former Army psychiatrist was convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. His execution is scheduled for Dec. 3.
Thursday's announcement by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the livestream drew criticism, even from some supporters of the death penalty. Vice President JD Vance on Friday questioned whether it would go ahead and said he would not watch. In a social media post, Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina called the proposal "utterly disgusting."
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, also condemned the plan, calling it "a barbaric promotion of a culture of death."
In Tennessee, however, Pike's failed execution has not prompted Republican lawmakers to reconsider the death penalty. Instead, some have discussed alternative methods, including the electric chair and firing squad.
Support for capital punishment in the US has declined from its peak in the 1990s. Ten states have abolished the death penalty since Pike was sentenced in 1996, but executions continue nationwide.
Thirty people have been executed in the US this year, with eight more scheduled, mostly in Texas and Florida.
A Pew Research Center survey in July found that about two-thirds of American adults consider the death penalty morally justified for people convicted of murder. But about six in ten said it does not deter crime, while roughly seven in ten said there is a risk that an innocent person could be executed.
