After failed execution, Christa Pike is back in prison

Christa Pike has been discharged from hospital and returned to the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women's prison where she has been held for more than 30 years, her lawyers said on Saturday. She will continue to receive medical care there; WVLT reports it could take months to assess any lasting cognitive damage. The defence said Pike is "grateful to the first responders and her medical team".

At her execution on 30 September, Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital and the state halted the procedure. Governor Bill Lee ordered an independent review and paused the last execution scheduled this year, while corrections commissioner Frank Strada offered his resignation. On Wednesday a Nashville court ordered the state to preserve all evidence from the procedure. What happens to her death sentence remains unclear.

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer. Death penalty supporters point to the brutality of the crime, while opponents see the failure as proof of the risks of lethal injection – the case has reignited the US debate over execution methods.