Christa Pike, the 50-year-old Tennessee death row inmate whose execution was halted last week after prison medical staff could not establish an intravenous line, is now walking and speaking in a hospital, her attorney told the BBC.
Pike remains mentally "foggy" but has regained enough physical function to move on her own, according to her lawyer. She was taken to a hospital after the failed lethal injection attempt, which was called off when the execution team could not place the IV lines required to deliver the lethal drugs.
The failed procedure is the latest in a string of botched executions across the United States that have intensified scrutiny of lethal injection protocols. States have struggled in recent years with a shortage of execution drugs and difficulty finding qualified medical personnel willing to participate, leading to prolonged attempts and, in some cases, halted executions.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, a fellow teenager she killed with her then-boyfriend in a case that drew national attention for its brutality. Pike was 18 at the time of the killing and became the youngest woman on death row in the United States when she was sentenced in 1996.
Her case has been the subject of repeated appeals over nearly three decades. Attorneys have argued that her age at the time of the crime and the circumstances of her upbringing should be considered in her sentencing.
Tennessee has carried out a small number of executions in recent years, but the state's lethal injection process has faced legal challenges over the drugs used and the qualifications of those administering them. The state has not publicly detailed what went wrong during Pike's attempted execution.
It is not yet clear when Pike will be returned to prison custody or whether the state will seek a new execution date. Her legal team has not indicated whether they plan to file additional appeals following the failed procedure.
The BBC reported that Pike's recovery has been described as a "shock" given the severity of what occurred during the execution attempt. Details about what caused the IV failure and how long the procedure lasted have not been released by the Tennessee Department of Correction.
