US Supreme Court lifts stay on Tennessee inmate Christa Pike’s execution

The US Supreme Court has removed a stay of execution for Tennessee death‑row inmate Christa Pike, allowing the lethal‑injection killing to proceed.

Pike, 50, was convicted of the 1996 murder of 19‑year‑old Colleen Slemmer and sentenced to death. A Sixth Circuit Appeals Court had halted the execution on Wednesday morning, but Tennessee’s attorney general promptly asked the Supreme Court to overturn the stay.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh granted the application to vacate the stay, though the order gave no explanation. The three liberal justices – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – dissented, with Sotomayor warning that the decision ignored Pike’s pending legal challenges to her conviction.

If carried out, Pike would become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than two centuries. The ruling came just before 18:00 local time, hours before the state’s execution order expires at midnight; if the deadline passes, the Tennessee Supreme Court must set a new date.

Earlier this week the Supreme Court had refused to hear a separate appeal from Pike, and the Tennessee governor denied her clemency request. Pike was 18 when she and her then‑boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, tortured and murdered Slemmer, whom they met at a job‑training camp for troubled teens.

Source: BBC News. Photo: RDNE Stock project / Pexels.