So my thinking here is this: she was sentenced to death, she received her punishment (failed execution), sentence can be considered complete?
I dont know much about US/Tennessee law but it would seem that she is in uncharted territory - having survived execution - and is a bit of a headache for the legal system? Are there any other cases like this and what happened?
My thinking is very liberal/European (I dont support capital punishment anyway) but providing she is no longer a risk to society - just release her. If it can be proved she is a risk, transfer her to a low security prison?
FYI: Christa Pike
I’m against the death penalty, but your logic isn’t sound. You say she was sentenced to death and that she received the punishment, so why is she alive? She didn’t receive the sentenced punishment until she dies.
In any case, I hope they reduce the sentence to anything not death penalty. Suggesting releasing her is ragebait honestly, wtf.
No. She was found guilty of committing the crime and sentenced to death. They need to continue the execution in a more reliable way.
No, she still tortured and killed a teenage girl.
I think they should commute her sentence to life, though.
She didn’t just take a life, she deliberately and cruelly took a life; it was planned and she wanted to make it hurt. This isn’t someone you want to let back on the streets.
The question is: would YOU take her in and let her stay with YOUR kids? I think most people would not.
The question is: would YOU take her in and let her stay with YOUR kids?
That is decidedly not the question actually.
america is plagued by vengeance, this is how these situations happen here in the first place
Ctx for people who haven’t read the article: she was 18 when she tortured and killed a 19yo girl with her boyfriend. They were legally adults (in most jurisdictions) and she was a similar age to the victim. Saying she “killed and tortured a teenager” is intentionally loaded language.
I choose to believe that rehabilitation is possible for every person, no matter the original circumstances. Ideally, everyone should be given the chance to live as freely as possible. Obviously, there has to be a process, there has to be some accountability and safety; but I don’t think precluding that as an option categorically at the moment of sentencing is right or just.
I can’t speak to her state of mind or risk to society specifically, but that’s the position I hold in general.
However, with what I know of the American “justice” system and how capitalist societies are structured and how they treat people with criminal records: I doubt that is the case for many long-term inmates… The situation is regrettable, but the existing ‘correctional’ institutions in America appear to create more problems than they solve. But ideally, yes; if she had been rehabiliated, she should be slowly reintroduced into society.
However however, with all that said… The argument that “she was sentenced to be executed and the execution was botched, therefore she should be let go” is a bad argument.
Some people are beyond rehabilitation and may or may not admit it themselves, they still deserve to be treated well even if they can’t have much freedom to keep people around them safe.
Absolutely. It doesn’t mean we should try or that we as a society should make them suffer. Punishment for the sake of inflicting pain and getting revenge is not useful; it accomplishes nothing.
There will be people who just cannot be rehabilitated for one reason or another; they refuse or are unable to act appropriately and function in society without causing harm. That just means they need to be kept separate from society and their freedom is restricted.
But I don’t think that decision should be made at the moment of sentencing. In fact, the very concept of sentencing is a little suspicious, and is fraught with inconsistencies and contradictions; people getting more time for weed possession than rape or white-collar crime that ruined dozens of lives. Frankly, I even think the very concept of “doing time” being seen as ‘paying a debt to society’ is very flawed. But I digress. Yes; they deserve humane treatment and decency. The point is to protect and correct. Anything else is just sadism.
she still tortured and killed a teenage girl
Yes, and she’s served her time.
She didn’t just take a life, she deliberately and cruelly took a life; it was planned and she wanted to make it hurt.
But you can’t automatically assume that she’s beyond rehabilitation.
This isn’t someone you want to let back on the streets.
Is that your knee-jerk opinion or that of trained professionals?
would YOU take her in and let her stay with YOUR kids?
Of course not. Do you let random strangers into your home and around your kids?
I think most people would not.
Well you’d hope so. But as long as it could be proven she didn’t pose a risk to the general public I’d be fine with her being released.
Does the teenage girl she killed get to come back to life? Or is she still dead?
So you wouldn’t let her stay with you, but you’d release her into a community with other people you don’t have to answer to and aren’t responsible for.
I’m not sure anyone is or isn’t beyond rehabilitation. I’d leave that to professionals.
I wouldn’t trust her around my people, so I wouldn’t impose her upon yours (or someone else’s). That’s all. I’m professional nothing other than Internet commentator, more or less same as I assume you are.
Dude. By all means debate and have your own hot takes, but at least read and digest what other people are saying.
While being a stupid kid herself. She is not the same person anymore and I believe she deserves to be set free
I kinda think of this as what would the sentence have looked like somewhere else?
I’m guessing something like life with 25 years non-parole. So after 30 years in prison so far, she should probably be allowed parole if she meets the normal requirements.
No. Her conviction was not invalidated by a botched execution attempt. There are no legal avenues through which release is an option.
She was sentenced to death, she received her punishment
Incorrect. A death warrant calls for a completed execution resulting in death, not for a finite number of attempts. She only receives her punishment if she dies.
Well, I believe there was a case in England where a woman was sentenced to death by hanging for killing her child. She was hanged and appeared dead, but when they cut her down after some time she came back to life. In her case it was considered she had endured her punishment and she was released. Public called her half hanged Mary(?). Not sure about her name anymore. But I’m sure long common law history is only employed when convenient.
Somewhere a dystopian sci-fi describes a justice system where you can receive multiple life sentences and actually serve them all. Upon a natural death, you are revived and renewed to the age you were at sentencing to serve the next life sentence. Only after completing them all are you free to die and remain that way.
The rich and powerful use their sway to prolong the sentences of those that have wronged them. Died early from an aggressive cancer? Well upon renewal they bribed the system to cure you of that. Or they implant a disease that won’t kill you sooner but makes your time even worse.
Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man has always stuck with me.
Without getting too spoilery, “demolition” is the punishment for heinous crimes. It is indeed a terribly serious punishment, but also leaves the perp alive and a benefit to the society while they are also punished for their crime at the same time. The how and why has given me lots to think about.
Worth a read for anyone that hasn’t and it’s a neat adventure of a murderer trying to outwit the law in a society with espers.
Such a good fucking book.
Somewhere a dystopian sci-fi describes a justice system where you can receive multiple life sentences and actually serve them all. Upon a natural death, you are revived and renewed to the age you were at sentencing to serve the next life sentence. Only after completing them all are you free to die and remain that way.
That somewhere is a Black Mirror episode.
I’m still cooking on it a bit. In the US, there is a concept of “judgement-proof” people in terms of civil litigation. If you have no assets or money, a civil suit can’t really get anything out of you. In this dystopian universe there could be “life sentence-proof” people. You get a terminal diagnosis with only like a 1 year prognosis. What’s to stop someone like that from going on a murder spree of retribution? If they survive the trial, they might only live a month of the sentence. 100 life sentences turns out to be under 9 years if those last a month on average. And there could be additional shenanigans with the rich trying to cure that ailment when a known terminal disease was present at sentencing.
Okay, no no no.
I’m going to illustrate something here, and I hope it makes sense. Please humor me:
Hypothetically, imagine a father, and he has a beautiful daughter. Now, as difficult as it is, just imagine that she’s kidnapped and brutally murdered, and he KNOWS who did it. The only ones in the whole world who knew it were the child’s father and the police. But for some reason, the (hypothetical) police didn’t do anything. The killer would remain free.
No matter what we think about such a situation, I think most people could sympathize with the father, and if the father decided to get revenge, people would at least understand it, maybe even find the father not guilty if he were ever put on trial. A father’s love for his child, and what had been done would justify his feelings. Understandable.
But in this hypothetical scenario, it wouldn’t mean that just anyone would be justified for wanting to kill the murderer, if they didn’t know the killer was a murderer. If someone just happened to kill the child’s murderer for no reason and had no idea that the child’s murderer had killed her, no one would say that this second killer had standing to justify killing that person.
To come back to the Christa Pike case, the death penalty can be debated, and there are honestly reasonable arguments on both sides of that case.
But failed executions are unacceptable. In any context. There should NEVER be a situation where the government takes an action to kill someone and fails to do it. The result of such a thing is INHERENTLY cruel and unusual punishment. It maims people, tortures them, et cetera. The fact that this could happen to someone who is a killer means it could happen to other people. And we know for a fact that innocent people have been put to death before, so a government that would have a failed execution and would still want to kill the person is a government that has announced that a failed execution is an option for that government. That it has the ability to commit that kind of cruel and unusual punishment against someone and then to do it again.
Government justifies its continued existence through the ethics of its actions. When someone has committed murder, it’s at least understandable that a given government would want to end the life of the murderer. Whether you or I or anyone else like the death penalty, it at least makes sense to want that.
The problem is that when that government fails to execute someone, the government itself is failing its first test. The test which justifies the government getting to continue to be government. At the point that a government is committing cruel and unusual punishment, for some reason, I lose interest in the question of whether a single convicted murderer deserves to die(and personally, I believe that answer is yes), but I become a whole lot more interested in why a government which has announced its intentions to have cruel and unusual punishment is now the one to ask questions about whether others should be punished in this way.
I have trouble focusing on whether a government should kill a given criminal when the government asking the question has the power to kill that person but itself lacks the ethical justification to be the one asking to do so.
No, she shouldn’t. But at the same time, I do not agree with the death penalty at all. It is barbaric. So she shouldn’t be subjected to the sentence again.
The governor should commute her sentence to life in prison. He’s fucked up so many times and still won’t learn. To let the multi-time botching executions prison commissioner resign instead of firing him… coward. I hope the Tennessee voters remove this idiot at their earliest opportunity. Please, please, please prove me wrong and show this is enough to break through the MAGA cult.
The governor should commute her sentence to life in prison.
Probably the most likely outcome.
please prove me wrong and show this is enough to break through the MAGA cult.
Ideally there would be a debate about capital punishment or more humane/effective methods of execution. Unlikely to happen though, MAGA morality will probably lead to the default being death by firing squad. Live and televised.
Don’t know. I’d err on the side of caution since the PIC creates animals instead of reforming citizens.
Ideally, there’d be no state sanctioned killings, and prisons would be rehabilitative. Like, I’m sad that the question could even be asked.
Also, she isn’t getting out. There is precedence for the SC to say her death sentence wasn’t carried out. I expect them to keep trying to kill her.
Should not be let out. You’ve linked the wikipedia page, it should say right there what she was convicted for doing.
Try again or life in prison is the debate I think you could have.
You can compare this with a couple instances where felons serving life sentences had to be resuscitated and then went on to appeal that since they had temporarily died they had fulfilled the terms of their ‘life’ sentence. Benjamin Shcreiber and Jerry Rosenberg are notable examples if you want to read more.
In at least one story I’ve heard, a judge has dismissed an appeal on similar grounds because “if the defendant has served their life sentence, then they must be deceased, and the deceased are unable to file appeal.”
Basically they argued over the letter of the law while ignoring the spirit. That kind of thing only works if you’re a billionaire, and the rest of us schmucks have to accept that the spirit of a life sentence is that you are removed from society until you’re dead for good (or granted clemency or whatever).
I’m against capital punishment, but the spirit of the law is that Christa Pike is to be permanently removed from society and given her case history that’s something I agree with. But even if you want to argue the letter of the law: she was sentenced to execution and if the state failed to execute her, that means she hasn’t been executed.
I’m not a lawyer, but to my understanding the only legitimate avenue to appeal she has, and it’s still a stretch, would be on the grounds of her botched execution being a “cruel and unusual punishment.” However, if released today she’d have to go through life in the USA - which is also cruel and unusual
You can compare this with a couple instances where felons serving life sentences had to be resuscitated and then went on to appeal that since they had temporarily died they had fulfilled the terms of their ‘life’ sentence.
Ahh. Didn’t realise there was presidence.
if the defendant has served their life sentence, then they must be deceased, and the deceased are unable to file appeal
I can see the logic there. It is the ‘death penalty’ after all.
That kind of thing only works if you’re a billionaire
Yep. Effectiveness of representation is determined by how much you’re willing/able to spend.
Didn’t realise there was presidence.
For future reference, it’s precedent.
I heard a story once from the midevil times where they changed the law from “hanged” to “hanged until death” cause they had to let someone off after a botched hanging.
Not too much precedent since then though cause most civilised countries have since banned state murder.
IMO she hasn’t yet served her sentence.
From what I heard there is already language that explains exactly what to do and that is if it fails then the fallback is electric chair. Of course her lawyers will fight it for the next 20 years, and even crazier if somehow they win. My guess is she dies naturally in jail before whatever next attempt gets finalized and I am ok with that.
So my opinion is, no she should not be freed and just be kept in jail for the remainder of her life.
fallback is electric chair
For real? Prisons still have them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Tennessee
For real… says for convictions before 1999, and if that is not an option they will continue to find something else. I am assuming the lawyers will fight that this does not apply to attempted executions but problems that came before it. If watching southern states and their absolute disgusting behavior towards death row inmates even with cases proving their innocense I highly doubt what happened here will ultimately change the final outcome.
I’m honestly surprised they didn’t do something awful without a court order stopping them.
Pike spent her prison time in solitary confinement
Absolute torture.
Warning, hard questions ahead, but, don’t worry, I’m sure you can find easy answers.
You might as well just stop reading, and downvote me now.
These are the cases that test the limits of human empathy and compassion.
When we imagine that “there are some people who can’t be rehabilitated”, how certain are we? In this case, did anyone even try? Who decides when we give up, are the people deciding this fully qualified to do so? Is it a judge listening to a single “expert witness” psychologist? Is it the prison warden deciding? Should more people be consulted, are we ignoring possible solutions out of convenience, or even anger and bloodlust?
Are you qualified to decide? Do you know what’s possible? I don’t. Did you read what she did and say, “she’s not worth the effort, she can’t be helped, the only thing to do is lock her away”? Is that your expert opinion? Maybe you learned it from a movie?
Everyone wants simple answers and the simple answer is to say that this person, because of what she did, deserves death, or at least to be locked away for life, out of sight, out of mind. Allow the brutal prison system to do whatever it wants. The experts must know what they’re doing. Why even try with this one?
I think “that’s the best we can do”, only because no one has tried harder.
Have we tried absolutely everything, can we think of nothing more? What could be learned from more concerted effort?
These are the cases that test us and I think we give up out of disgust, hatred, and convenience. Not to mention money in our for-profit prison system.
I love how you went on a rant and completely missed the bit where I said release her if she’s not a threat to society.
In most western countries - even in the case of murder - once someone’s sentence is up they are released. The caveat being that if that person is deamed to be a threat then alternative arrangements are made. And, threat is measured by professionals (psychiatrists, social workers, etc).
If Christa was still considered a threat then obviously, I wouldn’t support her release.
unfortunately we don’t have any facilities to be fair to anyone convicted of crime that would be appropriated and we lack the public healthcare but in a sane society. She would be put in a hospital and get care till she was well enough to be moved to psychiatric facility.
I dont know much about US/Tennessee law but it would seem that she is in uncharted territory - having survived execution
I don’t know their law either, but Usa has had failed executions before.
