Botched execution reignites debate surrounding death penalty

Amna Nawaz:

Christa Pike, the Tennessee woman who survived a botched execution, has reportedly taken a few steps in her hospital room six days after she received two lethal injections. Pike was convicted of the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, and it's now unclear how that case will proceed.

Justice correspondent Ali Rogin has more on the questions surrounding the state of capital punishment.

Ali Rogin:

In response to the failed execution attempt, the governor has paused all pending executions through the end of the year, and a judge has ordered Tennessee to preserve evidence of what went wrong.

To discuss, we're now joined by Austin Sarat, author of the book "Lethal Injection and the False Promise of Humane Execution."

Austin Sarat, thank you so much for joining us.

You have been covering executions and failed executions for a long time. How unique, if at all, is what happened to Christa Pike and how often do executions either fail or get botched like this?

Austin Sarat, Author, "Lethal Injection and the False Promise of Humane Execution": What happened to Christa Pike was shocking but not surprising.

To anyone that's followed the American death penalty, we know that executions are frequently botched, and the method of execution which is least reliable, most frequently botched, lethal injection. But I don't think anyone was prepared for an execution in which the lethal drugs actually reach the condemned person, and that person lives to tell about it.

So it's really an unprecedented event in the recent history of capital punishment.

Ali Rogin:

It certainly also seems unprecedented in terms of what policymakers do now. What options are the leaders in Tennessee who would make these decisions thinking through right now in terms of, do they try again? How does Christa Pike's legal status change?

Austin Sarat:

Well, the first thing that they are doing, as Governor Lee has announced, is, they're going to do an investigation to try to find out what actually went wrong in the execution chamber.

Next, the governor will have to make a decision about whether or not that this governor wants to commute Christa Pike's sentence. If the governor doesn't do that, and the state decides to go forward with a second execution attempt, we will be entering somewhat uncharted territory.

A second execution is very rare in the United States. It happened in 1947 in the state of Louisiana. It's happened a couple of times in Alabama more recently. And the arguments will be made, and I think they're persuasive arguments, that to subject Christa Pike to a second execution attempt would be a cruel punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment, and would be a form of double jeopardy prohibited by the Constitution of the United States.

Ali Rogin:

In your research, you have found that lethal injection fails more often than any other method in American history, including hanging and the electric chair. Why is that?

Austin Sarat:

Well, no method of execution is foolproof. Every method of execution that we have used in the United States, whether it's hanging, the electric chair, the gas chamber, now lethal injection, has run into problems.

Lethal injection runs into more problems because, paradoxically, it's a very complicated way to try to put someone to death. You have to find a usable vein. You have to secure an I.V. You have to make sure that the drugs that you are using are up to date and potent.

So it's not surprising that a complicated procedure like lethal injection would run into problems of the kind that it has. And, of course, the problems of lethal injection have not been helped by the desire of states, including the state of Tennessee, to keep what happens in the execution chamber as secret as possible, so that the problems of lethal injection, when they occur, often don't make the headlines that Christa Pike's execution attempt made.

Ali Rogin:

And certainly this execution attempt has made a lot of headlines, but you have opined that it's not likely to change the dial in terms of public perception around the death penalty.

Where is public sentiment today and why don't you think something like this might shift it?

Austin Sarat:

I think the United States is in a period of national reconsideration of capital punishment. Support for the death penalty is down from what it was three decades ago, and even people who support capital punishment tend not to support it as intensely as they once did.

The number of death sentences in this country is way down from what it was three decades ago. And if we look at the states that have the death penalty, many of them that have it on the books don't use it in practice. They don't execute anyone.

Ali Rogin:

Austin Sarat, expert on the death penalty and capital punishment, thank you so much for joining us.

Austin Sarat:

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.