WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 (DC Times Online) — The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Tennessee to execute Christa Gail Pike on Sept. 30, 2026, lifting a stay that a federal appeals court had issued earlier that day. Pike was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. Her execution was scheduled for that evening at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
What changed on the day of the execution?
The Supreme Court had denied Pike’s own request for a stay on Sept. 29. That did not end the legal proceedings. The next day, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a stay by a 2–1 vote while it considered motions from Pike’s lawyers and the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office.
A stay temporarily stops an execution. Tennessee asked the Supreme Court to lift the Sixth Circuit’s stay, and the justices granted the state’s request later Sept. 30. Lifting the stay removed that legal barrier; it did not, by itself, mean the execution had been carried out.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the Supreme Court’s decision to lift the stay. Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined her dissent.
What were Pike’s lawyers asking the courts to consider?
Pike’s lawyers argued that her trial counsel had not adequately presented evidence of childhood abuse. That is their claim, not a finding that her trial counsel was ineffective. Gov. Bill Lee separately declined to intervene after reviewing Pike’s request for clemency, leaving her sentence in place.
Why has the case drawn historical attention?
Pike would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Accounts differ on whether the state’s previous execution of a woman was in 1819 or 1820; the Death Penalty Information Center gives the year as 1820.
