{
  "id": 12249076,
  "title": "When a Death Sentence Can’t Stop Being One",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/05/when-a-death-sentence-cant-stop-being-one",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-10-05T23:02:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "This Day",
    "slug": "this-day",
    "url": "https://www.thisdaylive.com/2026/10/06/when-a-death-sentence-cant-stop-being-one/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Christa Gail Pike, convicted of the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer in Tennessee, USA, remains under the death sentence despite a failed execution attempt, according to legal experts. The botched lethal injection on Wednesday does not alter the court's verdict or judgement, which are still in force. In Tennessee, the death sentence is only carried out upon the convict's actual death, making survival of an unsuccessful execution attempt irrelevant.\n\nSimilar cases in the US have shown that a convict's survival of an unsuccessful execution attempt does not commute the death sentence. For instance, Willie Francis survived a failed electrocution in 1947, and Kenneth Eugene Smith survived a failed lethal injection attempt in 2022, yet both were eventually executed by alternative means. In Ohio, Romell Broom, who refused a lethal injection in 2009, was eventually executed in 2022, despite 18 attempts to find a usable vein for the injection.\n\nIn Pike's case, the facts indicate that she was 18 when she killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, with her boyfriend serving life imprisonment for his role. The murder was premeditated, as Slemmer was lured into the woods and killed. The Supreme Court has consistently held that the death sentence stands unless the convict is executed, and that a botched execution attempt does not alter this outcome.",
  "summary": "The Advocate By Onikepo Braithwaite Onikepo.braithwaite@thisdaylive.com Not Commuted by Failure: Christa Gail Pike, Dead Woman Walking! The answer to whether the death sentence imposed on Christa Gail Pike for the",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}