Tell TN Gov. Lee: No More Botched Executions—Empty Death Row

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee could have stopped Christa Pike's execution. He refused. Then the state botched it.

Pike was convicted of the brutal 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student in a Knoxville job training program. Nothing excuses that crime. But nothing excuses what the state did this week, either. 

On Wednesday night, Tennessee pumped Pike full of execution drugs. Twice. She didn't die. Her lawyers say executioners jabbed her with at least seven needles over the course of an hour. They called it "chemical torture." She was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, alive only because doctors fought to undo what the state had done.

This is a disgrace, and it isn't the first. It's Tennessee's second failed execution in five months. In May, executioners couldn't even find a vein to kill Tony Carruthers. Before that, Tennessee had to halt executions entirely after it was caught failing to properly test its lethal injection drugs. 

Now Lee has hit pause again and ordered another review. But a pause is not enough.

Tell Tennessee Governor Lee: Stop the cruelty. Commute every death sentence in Tennessee to life in prison now.

Thirty-nine people sit on Tennessee's death row. Four in ten have been there for at least 30 years. Black Tennesseans make up half of death row but just 17% of the state. And for every five executions Tennessee has carried out, one person sentenced to death has been exonerated. This is a system that gets it wrong, and when it fails, people suffer.

Only Lee can end it. The Tennessee Constitution gives the governor sole power to grant clemency, and state law lets him commute death sentences to life in prison. But he leaves office in January, and no one knows who comes next. One leading candidate, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, watched Pike's execution fail and called for something even more brutal: bringing back the electric chair. She has promised to start "flipping the switch."

Lee admits he has "very few answers" about what went wrong. That's unacceptable. A state that can't explain how it nearly tortured a woman to death has no business killing anyone else. Thirty-nine lives should not hang on an election. Tennessee has proven it cannot kill without cruelty. Governor Lee can make sure it never tries again.

Add your name now: Tell Governor Lee to commute the sentences of all 39 people on Tennessee's death row to life in prison and stop the cruelty before he leaves office.

The petition to Tennessee Governor Bill Lee reads:

"What Tennessee did to Christa Pike was cruel and shameful, and it must never happen again. Before you leave office, use your clemency power to commute every death sentence in Tennessee, including Pike's, to life in prison."