WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt the execution of Tennessee inmate Christa Pike on the eve of her scheduled lethal injection, BBC News reported, clearing the way for what would be the first execution of a woman in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Pike, 50, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer at a job-training camp for troubled teens in Knoxville. She was 18 at the time of the killing. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Monday denied clemency. Only 18 women have been executed in the United States since the 1970s, compared with 1,663 men, BBC noted.
Defense attorneys argued that “an 18-year-old brain is not an adult brain” and that Pike was too young for a death sentence. She was due to be executed at 11:00 a.m. EDT Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Sources: BBC News
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