Christa Pike has been discharged from hospital and returned to a Tennessee women's prison after surviving the state's attempt to execute her by lethal injection, her lawyers said on Saturday.
The 50-year-old is back at the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she had been incarcerated for 30 years. She had been in hospital since September 30, when officials administered two doses of pentobarbital in an attempt to carry out her execution.
Pike was left in critical condition after surviving both injections. Her lawyers said she was continuing to receive medical care in prison and that they would monitor her recovery. They also expressed gratitude to the first responders and medical team who treated her.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer. She was a teenager at the time of the crime.
The failed execution has drawn renewed scrutiny of capital punishment in the United States. In Tennessee, however, Republican legislators have not moved to reconsider the death penalty. Instead, some have discussed alternative execution methods, including the electric chair and firing squads.
The case has emerged alongside a separate controversy over the military's plan to livestream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, a former army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. His execution is scheduled for December 3.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the livestream plan on Thursday, drawing criticism from across the political spectrum. Vice President JD Vance said on Friday he questioned whether it would proceed and stated he would not watch. Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina called the proposal "beyond disgusting" in a social media post.
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."
Support for the death penalty in the United States has declined from its peak in the 1990s. Ten states have abolished capital punishment since Pike was sentenced in 1996, though 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 poll conducted in July found that about two-thirds of US adults considered the death penalty morally justified for people convicted of murder. However, roughly six in ten said it did not deter crime, and about seven in ten said there was some risk of an innocent person being executed.
