Marsha Blackburn Says ‘Bring back the Electric Chair’ Following Botched Execution In Her State

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) called on Tennessee to “bring back the electric chair,” following the botched attempt to end the life of convicted murderer Christa Pike.

Pike was strapped to a gurney on Wednesday after the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a last-minute stay on her execution for the brutal 1995 murder of college classmate Colleen Slemmer.

Tennessee prison officials tried not once, but twice, to administer a lethal dose of the drug pentobarbital, but Pike only appeared to lose consciousness while her heart kept beating.

“They went through two rounds and she was still breathing at the end,” WPLN health reporter Catherine Sweeney said after witnessing the debacle. “It was very ragged. She lifted her head up and was looking around at one point. She said that there was a spot that was burning and hurting and asked if that was normal. None of it was normal. I covered all the executions last year, and most of the ones this year. We haven’t seen anything like it. It went really poorly.”

After the two failed attempts, Tennessee’s governor halted all further executions by lethal injection in the state.

Blackburn, who’s running on the GOP ticket to be Tennessee’s next governor, wrote on X Thursday, “The answer is simple: Bring back the electric chair.”

Answering her tweet was Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), who wrote, “I have a bill filed in the House.”

Burchett’s bill has nothing to do with the electric chair, however. He introduced the DROP Act in May 2026 that aimed to reinstate hanging for federal death sentences.

Under Tennessee law, “Electrocution remained the only method of execution until 1998, when the state legislature added the choice of lethal injection to offenders who committed their crime(s) before January 1, 1999. In March 2000, legislation specified lethal injection as the primary method of execution, though death row offenders who committed their crime(s) prior to January 1, 1999, may still request electrocution.”

Pike’s attorneys released a statement after the attempts were called off.

“Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution,” the statement read. “We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy.”

The 50-year-old Pike was rushed to the hospital following the failed execution. Her attorneys said Thursday that Pike remained in critical condition.

Emory University School of Medicine professor Dr. Joel Zivot who was retained by Pike’s legal team, told the BBC that Pike “likely never achieved a sufficient blood level of pentobarbital to cause apnoea and cardiovascular failure during the attempted execution.”

“It’s very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury,” Zivot said.

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