Christa Pike's Drug Supplier Is Protected by THIS

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Dre.

Tony Brueski (0:08)

Eric, Christa Pike survived Tennessee's attempt to execute her for murdering Colleen Slemmer, and the state says it followed the protocol. You know, I hear them think, okay, then how the hell does this happen? But you start looking at medical groups telling people to stay out of executions, companies that don't want to supply the drugs and the state still has a sentence to carry out. When you look at this whole mess, this whole infrastructure, I did a deeper dive on it this morning. And yeah, I mean, there is nothing here that makes this easy for the state to do what it says it wants to do. In fact, the idea of lethal injections, I learned, was actually invented in Oklahoma by two people who were not medically trained on how to do any of this. They just thought it was a good idea, put it on paper, and then Texas actually adopted it and tried to figure out a way to make this work. It's never been a very sound idea, actually, from day one.

What do you look at when you're a defense attorney and all this is going on and you're like, there seems like there might be a problem here that needs a little tension.

Eric Faddis (1:17)

You know, the logistics of carrying this out are no small feat. We're talking about, like you said, an alleged shortage of this drug, pentobarbital, in part because the companies who produce it, they were getting a ton of bad PR. People were protesting, commenting on and trying to– and harping their business. So they're like, screw it, man. We do other stuff. We'll make money on that. We're not trying to get in the fray on this hotly contested political issue. So my understanding is that some people allege there's a shortage of the drug, the drug that still exists, the amounts of it. Some folks say that it's been degraded over time, that it is less effective, less potent. And so there is really a practical issue when it comes to, hey, this is the sentence, sure. But can we actually carry this out? And can we carry it out in a way that is consistent with the Constitution, which the government has to do, whether folks like it or not?

Yeah.

Tony Brueski (2:11)

Go ahead, Robin.

Robin Dre (2:12)

No, I'm just– I'm researching firing squads, too. Again, mechanically, they're saying it's more sound. It doesn't– it hasn't faltered once.

Tony Brueski (2:19)

And I'm just curious why the state's not doing it more. The argument that I've been hearing be made quite frequently, well, just hire a doctor who isn't in the AMA. But the objections go beyond that one organization. You've got nursing and other medical groups saying their people should not participate if you'd like to continue practicing.

So there's a pretty big assumption in just find somebody. I mean, what do you make of the state needing help from professionals that are telling their people, no, no, no, no, if you want to stay employed as this, we don't do that. This is really bad. But the government's saying they want us to do. We don't do that. And you can't get anybody. I mean, is that if we're talking about any other thing involving the government having to hire out a contractor and the contractor world is literally saying, we don't want that contract, please, we're not going to take it. Nobody wants this thing. When even the drug companies are telling you, that might kill people in a way we're not comfortable with.

Robin Dre (3:24)

It's not good for branding, man, for any organization. So to just think about that, if you think about the organizations that either provide the drugs or the personnel, all it has to do is leak out to any of their potential clients that, oh yeah, by the way, on staff, your nurse today, she actually just killed three people last month across the country. She got contracted to that. But you know what? She's going to be your labor and delivery nurse today. I mean, it's really not good for branding of organizations.

And so I can see why not, but that's why they got to come up with another method, man.

Eric Faddis (3:54)

Oh, gosh, there are so many times in court cases where the legal side wants one thing, and then the folks necessary to actually effectuate that objective either don't want to do it or think they can't do it or think there's going to be serious problems.

A judge might look at something and say, hey, I think this should happen, but that doesn't mean that in a practical sense, it's easy to bring about. And so I think there's a disconnect between the legal world and the medical world specifically on this issue. And then when you infuse that entire dynamic with politics, gosh, now we're getting real messy. And so we have all of these different interests, all of these desired objectives, and really some concrete impediments to bringing those things about and perhaps a disconnect between the entities and fields that need to be on the same page, but it appears are not.