Christa Pike’s Lawyers Say She’s Angry, Experiencing ‘Cognitive Confusion’ After Botched Execution

Christa Pike, the Tennessee death row inmate who survived a failed attempt to execute her nearly a week ago, is awake, her attorneys told reporters after a court hearing Wednesday.

Prosecutors and Pike’s legal team were at the Davidson County Chancery Court in Nashville regarding a motion by the defense to require the state to preserve evidence from the botched execution, including syringes, drugs, IV lines, and other medical equipment. Pike’s attorneys also complained that state corrections officials had “put up roadblocks” inhibiting them from having access to her hospital room, according to a report by The New York Times.

Judge I’Ashea Myles granted both requests, ordering the evidence to be preserved, including any video footage and witness statements. The judge further ordered authorities to grant Pike’s attorneys access to her hospital room and to the medical personnel treating her.

After the hearing, Pike’s attorneys held a press conference outside of the courthouse. Randy Spivey, one of the lawyers, told gathered reporters that Pike was awake and aware of what had happened. He was not in the room but was told her first words after awakening were “Where am I” and “Who are you?”

Pike “was aware of the state’s execution attempt and was angry,” according to Spivey, the Times reported. The attorney added that she was suffering “a lot of cognitive confusion.”

In a clip from the news conference aired by CNN, Spivey described how they believed Pike was “brain dead and that life support would be removed the next day,” but then on Tuesday morning, “to the shock of everyone, including me, including her team, and including the medical team, Christa woke up and began talking.”

Spivey said he did not yet have an explanation for why she awoke but added that Pike “has a long road to recovery,” describing her current condition:

She has a blood clot in one of her arms. She has pneumonia. She is not able to swallow yet, so she has not eaten. She cannot move either of her arms, both of her arms and hands are tremendously swollen, and we do not know what, if any, function she will regain in her arms. But we do know that there is a long road ahead.

Medical personnel have asked state corrections officers to remove her handcuffs but they refused, her lawyers told the Times. (During the hearing, Myles commented that the medical personnel should file a request to have their patient uncuffed.)

CNN senior national correspondent Ryan Young reported that state officials had said Pike had been handcuffed because of her past history of escape attempts, and added that her attorneys had described her arm as being “blown up like a balloon.”

Pike was sentenced to death after being convicted for the 1995 murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer. At trial, prosecutors presented evidence Pike, her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, and another classmate lured Slemmer into the woods, tortured her, and then murdered her. Shipp was only 17 years old at the time of the murder and therefore not eligible for the death penalty; Pike was 18 years old and Slemmer was 19. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, plus an additional consecutive 25-year sentence.

After her last appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court of the United States, Pike’s execution was scheduled for Sept. 30. Two attempts to execute her using injections of pentobarbital failed to stop her heart, and she was transported via ambulance to the hospital.

In the aftermath of Pike’s failed execution — and other past botched execution attempts — Tennessee prison chief Frank Strada resigned.

Prosecutors have not yet announced whether or not the state intends to try to execute Pike again. Her lawyers have petitioned Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) to commute her sentence to life in prison without parole, arguing that she has suffered cruel and unusual punishment. The victim’s mother, May Martinez, “has said she feels her family has been denied justice in her daughter’s killing and is in favor of Ms. Pike’s execution,” the Times reported.

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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