Court Halts Christa Pike’s Scheduled Execution

A federal appeals court temporarily halted Christa Gail Pike’s scheduled Tennessee execution on Sept. 30, about an hour before it was to begin, giving judges time to review a new legal challenge. Pike’s attorneys argue that the state’s recent acknowledgment of her history of severe childhood sexual abuse undermines its earlier position that she fabricated the claims; the state says her filing is procedurally barred. The Sixth Circuit’s review concerns whether mitigating evidence, including Pike’s abuse history and mental illness, was adequately investigated and considered at sentencing. Pike, now 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow Knoxville Job Corps student whom Pike and her boyfriend attacked when Pike was 18. Tennessee’s governor and the U.S. Supreme Court had declined to halt the execution, and the state attorney general asked the Supreme Court to lift the appeals court’s stay; the execution’s status depends on further court action.