Failed US execution sparks death penalty debate

Charlotte Gallagher (0:00)

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Charlotte Gallagher, and in the early hours of Sunday, the 4th of October, these are our main stories. The head of prisons in the US state of Tennessee is quitting following the failed attempt to execute a woman on death row. Ethiopian government troops and their allies take control of the Tigrayan regional capital. And tens of thousands of demonstrators in Spanish cities hit the streets to protest about the national housing crisis.

Also in this podcast, investigators say the co-pilot of the FlyDubai plane attacked his captain with an ax kept inside the cockpit and...

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29 prisoners have been executed in the US this year. Christa Pike would have been the 30th, but survived two lethal injections. She's now in hospital in a critical condition. Pike's case was already controversial. She was 18 when she murdered Colleen Slemmer and a victim of abuse. Her botched execution has made headlines around the world and seemingly led to the resignation of the head of prisons in Tennessee.

Frank Strada said it was in the best interests of Tennessee that he left the role. Pike's lawyer called the resignation justified, but said it did nothing to help Christa now. For more, I spoke to Niall Stanage from the Washington-based newspaper, The Hill.

Niall Stanage (1:47)

Whatever one thinks about the death penalty, and of course people have very passionately held views on that, to have one state, twice attempt to execute people and fail within one calendar year is just a bizarre and pretty gruesome record. So Frank Strada is resigning, and he'll step down this month, according to the governor of Tennessee. And he himself has said that it is, quote, in the best interests of Tennesseans for him to do so.

Charlotte Gallagher (2:17)

Do we know much more about Christa Pike's condition at this stage and also what will happen if she does survive?

Niall Stanage (2:24)

So apparently she is intubated in hospital. She obviously is in a critical condition.

We don't know a lot about her medium term prognosis, but it all seems rather grim. I mean, reading between the lines, I think it's fairly clear that these purportedly lethal drugs clearly did not kill her, but have obviously caused her to be in the state she's in now, which is in quite a dire state in hospital but still living.

Charlotte Gallagher (2:55)

If she does pull through, I mean, it's not unprecedented that the inmates have then been executed.

Niall Stanage (3:00)

Yeah, I mean, this is one of the big questions that hangs over this case. Christa Pike's execution has been postponed for the moment by the Governor of Tennessee, as has incidentally another execution separate from this or the other failed one that we're talking about. There was another execution scheduled for what remains of this year, and that has been postponed too.

But obviously, there will now be even greater attention on this case than there was before the first botched execution. One would think as a matter of general decency to execute a woman who you have failed to execute but badly injured first time around would seem, I think, indecent to many people, but that doesn't necessarily mean it won't happen.

Charlotte Gallagher (3:45)

Does the fact that she's a woman shock people more, do you think?

Niall Stanage (3:49)

The reality of it is, it probably does make her case more visceral. I think it probably gets more attention. I mean, before the debacle of the botched execution, there was still quite a lot of focus on this case, in part because had the execution been completed, she would have been the first woman to be executed by the state of Tennessee in approximately 200 years. I mean, I'm not saying that it would be completely different if it was a man, but the previous botched execution this year was a man and it didn't become the global news story that this has become.

Charlotte Gallagher (4:24)

And as you said that there's huge international interest in this case. Is it affecting the debate on the death penalty?

Niall Stanage (4:31)

So this is a great question and normally I hate sitting on the fence, but I do think it's a little early to tell. To make a very long story short, there is still a narrow majority in most polling in favour of the death penalty in the United States. Now, the margin has been eroded consistently for a couple of decades. Back in the mid 1990s, there was a massive majority in favour of the death penalty. Now, it's about 52% in Gallup polling. But political change has often been difficult to make, at least at the national level, in part because politicians are loathed to leave themselves open to the charge of being soft on crime.