Tennessee prison chief Frank Strada has resigned after the botched execution of Christa Pike, who remains unconscious on a ventilator following the failed lethal injection.
Governor Bill Lee announced that Mr Strada, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction, would leave his post later this month. An interim commissioner will be appointed.
The resignation came after medical staff struggled to administer two doses of pentobarbital to Ms Pike, 50, during Wednesday’s execution. Her lawyers said she was injected with at least seven needles and was heard crying, whimpering and breathing heavily throughout the procedure.
A court filing stated that Ms Pike eventually offered guidance on where staff could try to gain intravenous access. One needle was reportedly bent at a 90-degree angle when it was removed.
“My arm feels like it’s about to burst open,” Ms Pike said during the procedure, according to her lawyers. She also asked: “Does this happen like that?”
Her attorneys said she was taken to a Nashville-area hospital, where both arms were swollen, burned and blistered. As of Thursday night, they said she was intubated, on a ventilator and unconscious.
The lawyers believe problems with the intravenous lines caused the pentobarbital to enter the surrounding tissue rather than the bloodstream. They alleged that members of the execution team did not realise the lines were incorrectly placed or that the veins had failed before preparing and administering a second set of syringes.
They are seeking to preserve evidence from the execution to protect Ms Pike’s legal rights and establish what happened. Luke Ihnen, her attorney with Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee, said the team was working with those closest to her to respect her wishes and privacy.
Independent review ordered into Tennessee execution
Mr Strada said it had been a “great honor” to serve as commissioner and maintained that the department had acted in accordance with its established protocol.
“Even so, stepping aside is in the best interest of Tennesseans as the independent review moves forward,” he said. “I believe this review is entirely appropriate and necessary, and I look forward to doing everything I can to help determine exactly what occurred.”
Mr Lee said Mr Strada had served with integrity and had put the interests of Tennesseans first. He said he had accepted the resignation and was grateful for the commissioner’s commitment to ensuring a smooth transition.
The governor has halted any further executions in Tennessee for the rest of the year and ordered a comprehensive third-party review. The case is the second botched execution in the state this year.
Tennessee’s protocol provides for a second set of drug syringes if an inmate has not died after the first set, but does not specify what should happen if the person remains alive after both sets have been administered. The state switched from a three-drug lethal injection process to the single drug pentobarbital in 2024.
Ms Pike had been on death row for 30 years after being convicted of the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, her classmate at a Knoxville Jobs Corps programme. She received the death sentence in 1996 and would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Her lawyers had previously argued that an execution would amount to cruel and unusual punishment because of her individual physical characteristics and medical conditions, including thrombocytosis, post-traumatic stress disorder and small veins.
