Pike case: Emergency motion in federal court against isolation in prison infirmary
Christa Pike's lawyers want a 2024 settlement enforced and her "indefinite isolation" ended. The state says the arrangement meets her medical needs.
Symbolic image · Photo: Kaldari / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (cropped and resized)
Lawyers for Christa Pike, who is under a death sentence in Tennessee, filed an emergency motion in federal court on Friday. They argue that since returning from hospital after the failed execution on 30 September, Pike has been held largely isolated from other prisoners in the infirmary of the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center. They say this violates a September 2024 settlement that ended her decades of isolation and guaranteed her work, shared meals, recreation, religious services and supervised contact with other women. The court retained jurisdiction to enforce it.
The motion asks the court to order the corrections department to end the "indefinite isolation" as far as her health and safety allow. According to a sworn declaration, Pike is physically weak, has wounds on both arms and is receiving treatment. In an email dated 27 October, an assistant attorney general wrote that the arrangement meets the needs determined by her medical providers and that talks about long-term housing are premature. The department did not comment. The court has not yet ruled.
"I am recovering ... But healing is not the same as being okay," Pike said in a statement. Morgan Seeley, niece of Colleen Slemmer, who was killed in 1995, recalled the family's pain: "My aunt doesn't get to heal. She doesn't get another chance at life." Governor Bill Lee has paused executions until the end of the year and expects the sentence to stand unless the courts decide otherwise.