Tennessee’s first execution of a woman in 200 years was halted by a court on Wednesday morning an hour before it was set to take place.
The state governor and the supreme court had earlier refused calls for clemency in the case of Christa Pike, who was convicted of murder 30 years ago.
She was set to die by lethal injection at 11am ET on Wednesday but the execution has been halted by a federal appeals court.
In a 2-1 majority, the court said: “The interests of justice and the finality of Pike’s impending execution compel the entry of a short stay of execution in order to properly analyze the parties’ fully briefed arguments and resolve the issues on the merits.”
The office of Jonathan Skrmetti, the state attorney general, issued a statement reacting to the news on Wednesday, saying: “We will continue to advocate for the lawfully imposed sentence as the courts work through this technical issue. It is common in capital cases for the defense to raise last-minute objections following decades of litigation in numerous courts. We are asking the supreme court of the United States to lift the stay.”
The Guardian has reached out to the office of Bill Lee, Tennessee’s Republican governor.
Pike, who is now 50, was 18 when she and her boyfriend, who was 17 at the time, killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, one of their classmates at Knoxville Job Corps in 1995.
The case garnered nationwide headlines due to the ages of everyone involved, as well as a satanic symbol that was carved into Slemmer’s chest.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
