From our other sites
The story
In Tennessee, an attempt to execute death row inmate Christa Pike by lethal injection failed to produce a confirmed death, and her legal team’s statement revealed that she regained consciousness and was able to speak while being treated in a hospital. The backdrop: drug manufacturers’ refusal to supply execution drugs has made lethal injection increasingly difficult for US states to carry out, pushing some states to fall back on the electric chair or firing squad. On 5ch, opinions split over the legal question of what comes next — since the execution was “incomplete,” can it simply be carried out again, or would a second attempt amount to double punishment, meaning she should be switched to a life sentence instead?
Oct 7 (Wed), 8:41 AM JST
CNN.co.jp
(CNN) Christa Pike, a Tennessee death row inmate who survived an attempted execution, has regained consciousness and is able to speak while receiving hospital treatment, her defense team revealed in a statement.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
if you're human
if they put her back out there healthy, the body count's only going up
You've got a real gift for irony
Life sentence, then?
The sentence was technically already carried out, so switching to life would basically be a second helping of punishment, which seems like it'd be a legal problem? Not sure though.
Trumpo: 'Don't worry, baby, I brought back the firing squad! HAHAHA'
She killed someone brutally
There's no way she should be let off
Well, as a result she's suffered more than most death row inmates do
That kind of argument actually sounds like it could fly
coming from an American lawyer
'It's not a death sentence until you're actually dead!'
so by that logic, they'll just keep trying as many times as it takes
Isn't Japan the same way?
It's less 'she suffered enough' and more that the system just isn't built to administer punishment a second time
Her defense team is trying to stop it
The crime itself wouldn't even get the death penalty in Japan
Apparently Japanese executions don't fail because they leave the person hanging until death is confirmed
In the US, companies get slammed just for having their drugs used in executions, so none will cooperate — which is why they end up with sketchy methods that fail
It's a gun country anyway, so why not just use a firing squad?
That'll definitely do the job
It's a sedative, so there's probably no pain involved, right?
Before that — is there even a legal basis for calling it an 'executed' sentence in the first place? Calling it void since it wasn't completed makes a lot more sense
That's how it went in that Tsurube movie
There are plenty of surefire ways to kill someone, but drug companies don't want their products associated with it, so nobody will supply them — leaving it to non-medical people to use sketchy drugs, which is apparently why this keeps happening
Honestly, dying this time around would've been the easier way out
It's the opposite, genius
She received the punishment — being executed — so that's the end of the penalty
That's exactly why the prison gives her life-saving treatment when it fails
By the way, it's the same in Japan
Come back to life after execution and you walk free
There's allegedly been one case that sort of resembled this
The execution never actually happened, so they'll just carry it out again, genius
She's not walking free
They'll very likely try again next year
By then it might be a firing squad
I'd love to read her own account of what it felt like, physically and mentally, during the execution
I want to believe surviving has to mean something
Either the executioner missed the artery, or they simply never administered a lethal dose to begin with
It's one of those two — there's no fateful meaning behind her being alive
If an executioner's personal feelings could let someone dodge a death sentence, you might as well scrap the entire court system
The former army medic whose firing-squad execution Trump signed off on was sentenced to death by court-martial, so he's being executed by firing squad under military (federal) law
Apparently Tennessee only adopted lethal injection as its execution method in 1998
The article calls it an execution method unused in 200 years — before that it was the electric chair, and apparently if the drugs aren't available, they revert to the electric chair
So basically, next time it'll be the electric chair
but Yamagami also only killed one person (the man who assassinated former PM Shinzo Abe), and he got life in prison
In Nagoya's 'dark site' murder case (a crime arranged through an online site used to recruit accomplices), there was only one victim, yet the ringleader still got the death penalty
But I don't get this part
Who exactly has the authority to arbitrarily overturn a court ruling like that?
If a state government can just do that, what's even the point of having courts?
Clemency is a system that exists in every country, though.
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Lethal injection remains the dominant method of execution in the US, but a growing number of pharmaceutical companies refuse to let their drugs be used for executions, pushing more states toward alternatives like the electric chair or firing squad. Posters on the thread noted that reliable methods do exist, but with no suppliers willing to cooperate, states end up resorting to “weird” improvised methods. The biggest point of contention was the legal status of an inmate who survives an incomplete execution: one camp argued “she already received her punishment, so it’s over,” while the other argued “since it was never completed, it’s void, and they simply try again.” Under US case law, the standard practice is that a second attempt does not count as double punishment as long as the first execution was never completed, so the notion that “a botched execution means automatic release” is closer to urban legend than fact. Because Japanese executions by hanging continue until death is confirmed, there’s almost no equivalent history of botched attempts there, which is part of why the discussion on the thread talked past itself at times.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “[US] Death row inmate Christa Pike survives execution, regains consciousness and speech, defense team reveals.”
Leave a Reply