Yesterday I commented on the imminent execution of Christa Pike for a grisly murder committed over 30 years ago and suggesting that being kept on ‘Death Row’ for decades and *then* killed, could easily be described as cruel and unusual punishment under the US Constitution.
The update is that her execution was delayed for an hour whilst last minute legal arguments were considered. Once they were cleared, Christa was *again* told she was about to be killed in cold blood. So after being delayed an hour, the execution finally went ahead… and failed. She’d been given two shots of phenobarbitol, but they didn’t do the job required, and after 40 mins her execution was aborted and she was rushed unconscious to hospital for treatment. However, and as bizarre as it sounds, she will still be scheduled for execution… as soon as she recovers.
There are moves afoot for a constitutional appeal based on the claim that carrying out the execution for a second time really *is* a “cruel and unusual punishment”… which I’d suggest it was *before* the botched first attempt and is now even more so!! That is one sick, sick society.
