Tennessee Torture

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Twenty-three US states and the District of Columbia have completely abolished the death penalty, but America's bloodlust still surges across much of the nation, particularly through the the deeply red and staunchly Christian American South.  Twenty-nine people have been executed in the United States during 2026, including one each in Arizona and Tennessee, 2 in Alabama, 3 in Oklahoma, 6 in Texas, and 16 in Florida,  

Eight more executions are scheduled in the United States before the end of the year:  3 in Texas, 2 in Florida, and one each in Alabama, Indiana, and Oklahoma.  Tennessee also had one execution planned during that three-month period, but that one is now on hold because Governor Bill Lee paused all executions in the "Volunteer" state for the remainder of the year.  

Governor Lee paused Tennessee's execution calendar because of the mess his state made of the attempted execution of 50-year-old Christa Pike this past Wednesday.    After two failed attempts to kill the prisoner with a lethal injection, the state gave up the effort and rushed her to a hospital where she has remained comatose and on life-support.

Ms. Pike, who would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in over 200 years, has been a prisoner in the Tennessee penal system since her senior year in high school when she killed a classmate.   Her defense team describes her as a victim of child rape, and they have also stated repeatedly that she has a blood disorder that would make the process of a lethal injection very difficult to carry out.  Nonetheless, the state of Tennessee proceeded with the effort last Wednesday, flaunted the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution which bars "cruel and unusual punishment," and charged ahead with their effort to terminate the life of the prisoner - twice.

What happened in Tennessee this week was more than just cruel and unusual, it was sick and barbaric.  The governor was right to pause the process until the end of the year, and hopefully he will keep it paused until his state can figure out how to humanely kill a person.  Perhaps if everyone in the state prays hard enough, Christa will open her eyes and rejoin the land of the living, and then the state can try again.

The ugliness of what happened in Tennessee this week should shame us all.  It is well past time for the United States of America to end capital punishment and get out of the business of killing people.