The Supreme Court on the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 30, cleared Tennessee to execute Christa Pike, 50, for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. It vacated a 2-1 6th Circuit stay issued about an hour before her scheduled execution, over dissents from Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson.
Sept. 29 — The Supreme Court declined to stay Christa Pike's execution. Her lethal injection was set for 10 a.m. on Sept. 30 at Riverbend prison in Nashville.
On the record
- Justice Sotomayor, dissenting: Tennessee's wish to speed the execution "by a few days or even weeks cannot outweigh her 'fundamental interest in [her] own life.'"
- 6th Circuit Judge Richard Griffin, dissenting from the stay, called the appeal "another last-ditch meritless effort to delay a lawful execution."
- Pike was 18 when she committed the murder, per PBS NewsHour.