Tennessee Execution Of Christa Pike Halted By Court

The scheduled execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee has been halted by a federal appeals court about an hour before she was due to be put to death on Wednesday.

The court ordered a stay of execution to allow judges to review whether Pike’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse and rape were fully considered before she was sentenced to death.

Pike, now 50, was convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate she killed when she was 18.

Her execution would have been Tennessee’s first execution of a woman in at least 200 years.

The federal appeals court issued the order at about 9 a.m., shortly before the execution was scheduled to take place at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

Execution witnesses had already gathered at the prison when the court’s decision was announced.

It was not immediately clear whether Tennessee Attorney General’s Office would appeal the ruling or how long the stay would delay the execution.

Pike and her boyfriend were convicted in connection with Slemmer’s killing. She was sentenced to death and has spent decades on death row.

The court’s intervention means the execution will not proceed as scheduled while the judges consider the claims concerning Pike’s childhood abuse and their potential relevance to her sentencing.