Capital Punishment Debate Ahead of Midterms
Citizens participate in a March 4 Mercy against the death penalty protest at the Tennessee State Capitol on September 27. Source: George Walker/AP Photo.
Christa Pike’s botched execution on September 30 has raised numerous questions regarding the constitutionality of capital punishment in the U.S. The scheduled execution on September 30 commenced after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a federal circuit court’s stay. Previously, Pike was convicted of first-degree murder in March 1996 after she, Shadolla Peterson, and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, lured Colleen Slemmer into the woods on the University of Tennessee campus, brutally beating and killing her.
When the execution chamber’s curtains at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution revealed Pike on a gurney at 7:27 p.m., she received the first syringe of pentobarbital while communicating with Mikey Noechel, her spiritual advisor. However, Pike remained conscious until 7:44 p.m., when she began to complain of a burning sensation in her arm, a common indicator of the drug leaking into surrounding tissue rather than the bloodstream. This failure reflected Pike’s worries regarding lethal injection; on June 12, her attorneys filed a motion requesting execution by hanging, citing Pike’s thrombocytosis and small veins. Yet, medical officials administered a second syringe of pentobarbital, and reporters recalled hearing Pike snore until 8:53 p.m., when all media witnesses were instructed to leave.
By 9:15 p.m., emergency vehicles arrived at the prison to treat Pike, whose arms were swollen, burned, and blistered. She remained unconscious, intubated, and on a ventilator for nearly a week; on October 6, doctors believed Pike was brain dead until she unexpectedly woke up and began talking. She had pneumonia and a blood clot in one arm when a Tennessee judge granted a motion to preserve all evidence of the execution attempt. On October 8, she was walking and eating again, and two days later, Pike was discharged from the hospital and was sent to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center.
Pike’s survival marks Tennessee’s second failed execution of the year, following that of Tony Carruthers in May. In this case, medical personnel spent approximately an hour attempting to establish IV access in his arms, feet, collarbone, and shoulder until Governor Bill Lee ordered the warden to halt the execution. The failed procedure resulted in a brain stroke that subsequently led to the paralysis of the right side of his body.
According to the AMA Code of Medical Ethics, physicians “must not participate in a legally authorized execution.” However, state medical boards license doctors, leaving physician involvement in executions up to the states rather than the federal government. There are 23 states that have outlawed capital punishment, and two of those, Illinois and Kentucky, prohibit doctors from participating in executions. For example, in Idaho, candidates must have at least three years of experience in jobs such as physician’s assistant, emergency medical technician, nurse, or military corpsman. Additionally, a licensed physician must be present, directly contradicting the AMA code.
Further, volunteers are executioners who are not doctors. Secrecy laws protect executioners’ identities, but multiple cases of identified team members who had been scrutinized by the law were given the job by the state’s department of corrections. For example, Alan Doerhoff was Missouri’s chief executioner from 1995–2006. He was sued for medical malpractice over twenty times, and his hospital privileges had been revoked at two hospitals; he carried out fifty-four executions. Other executioners have been revealed to be suspended nurses, drunk drivers, and people with no medical license of any kind, directly questioning the standards applied when composing an execution team.
Mark Fowler, a physician and contractor for Tennessee's prison system, was tasked with establishing IV access during Carruthers’ procedure and oversaw Pike’s attempted execution. According to an October 2025 deposition, Fowler said he hadn’t done such a procedure in twelve years and was unaware that placing a central line could be one of his execution duties. Fowler’s involvement revealed that he currently has no hospital privileges, meaning no hospital has authorized him to practice or perform medical procedures.
This discovery has intensified conversations regarding the role of medical professionals in capital punishment. Following Carruthers’s botched execution, fifty medical experts wrote a letter to Governor Lee requesting a moratorium on the death penalty. He denied the petition, prompting further outrage from the medical community involving their commitment to the Hippocratic Oath, which has profoundly shaped modern medical ethics.
Moreover, there has been a consistent pattern of flawed leadership decisions and botched executions. On October 4, Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada announced his resignation, agreeing to leave his post at the end of the month. Strada was under fire for his record of botched executions in Arizona, overseeing three. All three medical personnel failed to find a vein in the arms, prompting doctors to find alternative locations on the body. During the scheduled execution of Clarence Dixon in May 2022, doctors opted to make an incision in his groin area as he grimaced and appeared to be in anguish. Frank Atwood endured significant pain due to a degenerative spinal condition, yet the execution team continued to strap him to the gurney and inserted the IV into his right hand in June 2022. Similar to Dixon, medical officials inserted a catheter near Murray Hooper’s groin in November 2022.
After the executions, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs enacted an executive order pausing executions in the state in January 2023. Yet, two weeks later, Strada was appointed to Tennessee’s Department of Correction, which had also paused its executions. Under Strada’s leadership, the Tennessee Department of Correction resumed executions using a new single-drug (pentobarbital) lethal injection protocol by December 2024. Governor Lee has since announced that former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton will conduct an independent review of the Department of Correction’s actions regarding Pike’s sentence, arguing that the public expects executions to be carried out “in a manner that’s not only legal and constitutional, but effective.”
Furthermore, Pike’s failed execution has grabbed the attention of Tennessee’s gubernatorial candidates, namely Democrat Jerri Green and Republican Marsha Blackburn. Green addressed the lack of transparency involving drug testing and argued for a moratorium on all future executions, whereas Blackburn pledged to use the electric chair for executions as governor.
The Tennessee election reflects a broad national trend. While support for the death penalty has consistently declined since 1994, research indicates that support is currently 6 percent higher than it was five years ago for people convicted of murder. President Trump has openly supported capital punishment throughout his tenure, and recently approved the live-streamed firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, who killed thirteen people at Fort Hood in 2009. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has championed the decision to live-stream the execution, arguing that it will provide a deterrent effect on future crimes. However, deterrence theory has resulted in largely insignificant conclusions; there is no concrete evidence supporting the idea. Yet, research demonstrates how non-legal factors (marriage, employment, ostracism, etc.) have a more substantial impact on adherence to the law as compared to the death penalty. This decision has even divided Republican leaders, as Vice President JD Vance suggested the live stream would not happen and expressed his refusal to watch.
Tennessee’s second failed execution attempt this year has illuminated partisan debates over the morality of capital punishment amid midterm elections. The state’s gubernatorial election this November will determine whether the state institutionalizes the electric chair or implements a complete ban on the death penalty. Meanwhile, candidates involved in the midterm elections are wary of the political consequences of endorsing or criticizing capital punishment, and they have divided along partisan lines. As protests against physician involvement and the physical torture of inmates continue, subsequent results will likely reflect steadily declining national approval rates.