Sir, – Repeatedly beaten and raped as a child, Christa Pike became a troubled teenager who killed a classmate (“The tragic life of Christa Pike: Death row inmate whose execution was botched”, World News, October 2nd).
After a 30-year wait, the state of Tennessee decided the time had come for her to pay the ultimate price for her crime, so last week she was strapped to a gurney and injected with poison. In a macabre twist, two attempts to kill her failed and she was rushed to hospital for life-saving treatment.
Governor Bill Lee, who had declined to use his clemency power to spare Pike’s life, has paused further executions pending the outcome of an investigation into what went wrong.
It is a cause for dismay that rather than seizing the opportunity to (belatedly) abolish capital punishment, the authorities are instead searching for more efficient ways to kill other humans. If Pike regains her health the state of Tennessee may try to put her to death again.
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Tennessee’s official slogan is “America at its Best”. It might be time for a rethink. – Yours, etc,
IAN O’DONNELL,
Professor of criminology,
University College Dublin.
