[UPDATE] Supreme Court lifts appeals court's last-minute stay of Christa Pike's Tennessee execution, three liberals dissenting

A 2-1 6th Circuit panel halted the execution about an hour before it was set to begin; the justices undid that the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 30.

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.

PREVIOUSLY

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.