WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Calls are growing for U.S. authorities to commute the death sentence of Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike.
The UN human rights chief and nine independent rights experts on Thursday called on authorities in Tennessee not to pursue any further attempts to execute Christa Pike, saying her case highlights multiple concerns surrounding the death penalty.
After an attempt to execute Pike by two lethal injections failed Wednesday, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee halted the remaining executions in the state for the rest of the year.
Christa Gail Pike was convicted in 1996 for murdering her 19-year-old Job Corps classmate Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. At the age of 20, Pike was sentenced to death, making her one of the youngest women to be sentenced to death in the United States during the post-Furman period.
Pike's attempted execution took place at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville Wednesday night.
In a dramatic day of developments, Pike was denied clemency and, one hour before her execution, a court halted it then lifted the stay.
After two syringes of the lethal drugs were injected on Wednesday, Pike's legal team filed an emergency motion with the Tennessee Supreme Court. Pike's lawyer, Kelly Gleason, stated that while Pike is 'alive and snoring,' she 'needs immediate medical care.
Pike did not lose consciousness and maintained a heartbeat during the attempted execution and the procedure was declared botched. She was taken away from the prison in an ambulance.
Pike is in critical condition and receiving life-saving medical care, her legal team said Thursday afternoon.
Pike's lawyer urged Governor Lee to commute her sentence, saying that she had suffered punishment 'greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty.'
The UN rights chief pointed to unresolved questions surrounding Pike's fair trial, saying they raised additional concerns about proceeding with another execution attempt.
'The prolonged suffering - physical and mental - arising from multiple failed execution attempts is abhorrent and cruel,' Volker Türk said in a statement.
The statement comes amid what the UN office described as an increase in the number of executions in the United States, with the Pike case renewing attention to the human rights implications of capital punishment in the country, including safeguards for fair trials and the treatment of people subjected to repeated execution attempts.
Türk reiterated the UN's opposition to capital punishment, stating that 'the death penalty has no place in any society.'
Nine experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Counci echoed those calls.
'The state of Tennessee must immediately and irrevocably end this cruelty by commuting Christa Pike's death sentence,' they said on Thursday.
'Not one but two botched execution attempts are a flagrant breach of the prohibition of torture and arbitrary deprivation of life and show why [the] death penalty should be prohibited everywhere,' they said.
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