When Christa Pike woke up earlier this month after surviving two lethal injections, the death row inmate found herself at the heart of a renewed cultural discussion about capital punishment.
Now, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll , published Tuesday, October 20, has revealed whether or not Americans believe the state of Tennessee should try to execute her again. When asked what should happen after a botched execution attempt, the nationwide poll showed a very divided response.
Among all respondents, 39 percent supported the surviving inmate’s sentence commuting to life behind bars, followed by 33 percent who believed that the state should try again and 26 percent unsure. Independent voters had similar response ratios, while Democrats and Republicans had strongly opposing views.
While 51 percent of Democrats felt surviving inmates should receive life behind bars compared to 24 percent in support of a second attempt, Republicans flipped those numbers, with 52 percent saying states should try again and 31 percent selecting life imprisonment.
The poll also revealed that overall support for the death penalty has declined in the past decade, though more than half of respondents are still for capital punishment. In 2017, 63 percent of respondents to a Reuters/Ipsos poll said they agreed with it for the most serious crimes, per People ; that number dropped to 55 percent in the latest poll.
The new poll comes less than a month after Pike, 50, survived two execution attempts on September 30 in Nashville. As she lay unconscious afterward, her family said they were told she was brain dead and the plug would be pulled on October 6. That morning, she woke up.
Four days later, Pike was discharged from the hospital and returned to prison. Her lawyers told CBS News in a statement, “She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison, and we will continue to track her recovery.”
In the wake of Pike’s failed lethal injection, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee halted the state’s remaining executions for 2026 and ordered an independent review into what happened. Pike’s legal team has pushed for the governor, 67, to have her sentence commuted to life in prison .
Pike was sentenced to death for the brutal killing of her classmate Colleen Slemmer in 1995. Pike was 18 years old at the time. According to the Death Penalty Information Center , Pike is the only person to have survived a successfully completed lethal injection.
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