The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for Tennessee inmate Christa Pike to be executed, overturning a last‑minute reprieve.
The lethal‑injection execution was scheduled for Wednesday morning before judges from the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court halted the execution. Tennessee’s attorney general immediately requested the Supreme Court to overrule the lower court’s stay.
Pike, 50, has been awaiting execution since she was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of 19‑year‑old Colleen Slemmer.
If the execution proceeds, Christa Pike will be the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years, though no specific date has been set.
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh granted the application to vacate the stay, with no explanation for lifting the stay provided in the order.
The court’s three liberal justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson—dissented in the evening order, arguing that the decision cleared the way for execution before Pike’s pending legal challenges could be properly considered. Sotomayor wrote that Tennessee’s desire to expedite the execution "cannot outweigh her fundamental interest in [her] own life."
The latest ruling came just before 18:00 local time, hours before the state’s execution order is set to expire at midnight. If time runs out, the Tennessee Supreme Court will need to set a new execution date, the Associated Press reports.
Earlier on Wednesday, judges from the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court paused the execution, saying they needed more time to consider the arguments in Pike’s case.
Pike’s lawyers said that for years, Tennessee argued in court that she had lied about being sexually abused as a child. However, at a recent hearing about her execution method, the state said it did not dispute she suffered sexual abuse and rape. Pike’s legal team asked the appeals court to send her motion back to the district court, arguing that if the federal courts based their ruling on the state’s earlier claim that she was lying, then the federal review was affected.
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court refused to hear a different appeal from Pike. Tennessee governor also denied a clemency request this week from the death‑row inmate.
Pike was 18 when she and her then‑boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and murdered Colleen Slemmer, a 19‑year‑old they met at a job‑training camp for troubled teens.
