US Supreme Court clears way for Tennessee woman's imminent execution

The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for the execution of Christa Pike, a woman convicted of murder in Tennessee over 30 years ago. Pike, 50, has been on death row since her conviction in 1996 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer. According to CBS News, if the execution proceeds, Christa Pike will be the only woman executed in Tennessee in the last 200 years.

The Supreme Court's decision was made after a last-minute reprieve was granted by judges from the Sixth Circuit Appeals court, which was then overturned. The court's three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented in the order, with Sotomayor writing that the decision cleared the way for Tennessee to execute Pike before her pending legal challenges to her conviction could be properly considered.

Christa Pike would also be the only person in the modern era of US capital punishment to be executed in Tennessee for a crime committed as a teenager, according to Free Malaysia Today. The Tennessee correction department planned to move forward with the execution, although it was not immediately clear when it would take place. Pike's clemency petition, highlighting childhood trauma and sexual abuse, was denied by Governor Bill Lee on Monday.

Brief written by urgent.news from Le Monde English, CBS News, The Indian Express, BBC World, Free Malaysia Today — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.