When the Machinery of Death Fails
By Paul Huebl
Christa Pike committed a crime of almost unimaginable cruelty and evil. Her guilt was never seriously in question. She was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. For three decades, she fought a losing battle through the courts until every avenue of appeal had seemingly been exhausted. It is difficult to argue against the death sentence imposed for such a monstrous crime. But what followed raises a question far more troubling than the original verdict: How many times should the government be permitted to try to kill the same condemned human being?
For years, Christa Pike lived beneath the terrible shadow of an approaching execution. Government officials assured her that she would die. The date was set, the executioners were preparing, and the machinery of death was ready. Imagine the psychological torment of those final days. The calendar itself becomes an instrument of torture. Days dissolve into hours, hours surrender to minutes, and every tick of the clock brings the condemned woman closer to the moment when strangers will deliberately stop her heart.
Then came the appointed hour. The prison execution team arrived, and Christa Pike was taken into the death chamber, placed upon a table, and strapped down. Helpless, immobilized, and entirely at the mercy of those assigned to kill her, she faced the final moments of her life. What followed was a grotesque spectacle of human suffering. A so-called medical technician repeatedly stabbed at her veins, struggling for an inordinate amount of time to establish intravenous access. Finally, the first lethal dose was administered. The clock continued ticking, and Christa Pike's heart continued beating. A second lethal dose followed. Again, the clock ticked. Still, her heart refused to stop. The government had prepared its execution chamber, assembled its personnel, and administered its deadly chemicals. Yet the condemned woman remained alive. The execution had failed.
I served as a medical corpsman in the United States Army and administered thousands of intravenous injections. From that experience i can tell you the lethal chemicals were never properly delivered into Pike's bloodstream. Instead, they infiltrated the surrounding tissue. That would explain why the chemicals failed to produce their intended result.
And then came an extraordinary reversal. The woman whom the government had just attempted to kill was rushed to a hospital emergency room, where medical professionals worked feverishly to save her life. The executioners had failed to kill her. Now physicians were fighting to keep her alive. Christa Pike lay unconscious, dependent upon a ventilator, suspended somewhere between life and death. As doctors contemplated withdrawing life support, the unexpected happened: Christa Pike awakened. The woman who had been strapped to an execution table, injected with lethal chemicals, and seemingly delivered to death's doorstep had somehow survived. Today, she is speaking and walking as physicians work to rehabilitate her tortured body.
Meanwhile, the courts are confronted with an extraordinary legal and moral dilemma. Can the government drag Christa Pike back into the death chamber, strap her down once more, and attempt to kill her all over again? The constitutional protection against double jeopardy has generally been confined to repeated prosecutions and punishments. It has not been interpreted as an automatic prohibition against another execution attempt following a failed procedure. Indeed, the United States Supreme Court permitted a second execution attempt after a botched electrocution in Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459 (1947). But judicial precedent cannot settle every question of human decency. At what point does justice surrender its dignity and become cruelty?
Thirty years have passed since Christa Pike committed her terrible crime. Nothing can undo that murder, restore her victim's life, or erase the suffering inflicted upon the victim's family. But neither can another execution. Christa Pike has already endured the terror of counting down her final days, the helplessness of being strapped to an execution table, the repeated puncturing of her veins, and the administration of chemicals intended to extinguish her life. She has endured an ordeal few human beings could possibly comprehend. She survived her own execution, and now the government may demand that she endure the entire nightmare again: another death warrant, another countdown, another procession into the execution chamber, another table, another set of restraints, another needle, and perhaps another failure. Is this really what justice has become?
I do not excuse Christa Pike's crime. I do not minimize its savagery. I do not suggest that the passage of thirty years somehow washes away the blood of her victim. But I question what civilized society gains by repeatedly attempting to execute a woman who has already endured the horror of one failed execution. There must be some boundary beyond which punishment becomes vengeance, and vengeance becomes barbarism. Perhaps Christa Pike's survival was the result of medical incompetence. Perhaps it was an extraordinary accident of human physiology. Or perhaps it was something far greater: an act of providence.
Whatever the explanation, the government had its opportunity to carry out the ultimate punishment. It assembled its executioners, strapped down its prisoner, and administered its poison. It tried to kill Christa Pike, and it failed. Thirty years after her terrible crime, must the government really summon her executioners once more? I would hope that somewhere within our courts, our government, and our collective conscience, there remains enough humanity to recognize when the pursuit of punishment has gone far enough. Christa Pike has already been taken to the threshold of death and somehow returned. Surely, that should count for something. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
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