Tennessee's death penalty: The path forward

Tennessee's death penalty: The path forward

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — For the second time in four months, the state of Tennessee failed to execute a death row inmate. The latest debacle was this past Wednesday night when convicted murderer Christa Pike was given two doses of pentobarbital, a drug that should have taken her life, and survived.

Pike is now being treated at a local hospital while Governor Bill Lee and the state legislature try to find a way forward.

Lee has called for a third party to investigate what went wrong and has paused executions at least for the rest of the year.

RELATED COVERAGE | TN looks to new prison system leadership, changes in execution protocol

Without question, one issue is the state didn't have sufficient protocols in place when the second dose of medication failed to have the intended effect.

U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn, the Republican nominee for governor, has suggested the state revert to the electric chair as the primary method of execution.

Her Democratic opponent Jerri Green is calling for Governor Lee to fire his corrections commissioner and move away from the death penalty altogether. And she's not alone.

“For whatever reason, we had two botched situations like this. And we need to start to pull back from this and put a moratorium on it, and maybe I move away from doing this altogether because we can't get it right," said Kenya McGruder, a Democratic strategist and former congressional aide.

Senator Blackburn rightly points out we have to get this right. She says lawmakers should consider calling a special session during which we'd learn what states like Florida and Texas are doing that we aren't.

Both of those states execute many more death row inmates every year than Tennessee and don't have the issues that we have experienced of late.

“Putting the victims first is what the Republicans in the legislature are concerned about. That's the motive behind the method. The method is not wrong. It's a competency thing. And so the governor's right to pause it. We need to fix this," said Tres Wittum, a former advisor to the state senate and author of the "Digital Bill of Rights."

Should that happen in a special session, or should lawmakers take up the issue when they return to Nashville in their regular session in January?

“I think if we're talking about calling special sessions and things like that, I think it speaks to the fact that we haven't been able to do this correctly for some time," offered Brian Cordova, Executive Director of the Tennessee Democratic Party. He against a special session and believes regular Tennessee families have many more pressing issues than how to carry out the death penalty.

A hard look at lethal injection as the state's primary method for carrying out executions is certain to happen.

East Tennessee congressman Tim Burchett, who represents Knoxville, where Christa Pike murdered Coleen Slemmer in 1995, the crime for which she was sentenced to death, says lawmakers should consider a firing squad.

And the percentages suggest it's at least worth consideration.

RELATED COVERAGE | Firing squad as execution method in Tenn. after Christa Pike's failed execution attempt?

”Since 1890, if you're reading through, the only method in which to actually carry out these executions that has zero botched executions is by firing squad,” said Megan Lee Podsiedlik, a journalist with the conservative online news site "The Pamphleteer."

“Clearly this can't keep happening. And in this circumstance, it's cruel and unusual. And I think that that's something that even if you are pro death penalty, it's not that we're pro torture,” said Podsiedlik, a Republican, who covers both state and metro government.

What remains to be seen is how quickly all of this will happen and on whose watch.

Governor Lee's term ends early next year.

If previous death penalty reviews are any indication of how this one plays out, this job will fall to the state legislature and Tennessee's next governor.

This week's Nashville in Focus panel also discussed the gubernatorial debate that wasn't, the 5th and 7th district congressional races and state senator Charlane Oliver's filing a federal court lawsuit against Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally. The Nashville Democrat's suit alleges illegal retaliation for her gerrymandering protest on the Senate floor this spring, when the legislature approved new congressional district lines favoring Republicans who control both houses of the Tennessee legislature and the governor's office.