Christa Pike case: Failed execution puts death penalty under scrutiny

The failed execution of Tennessee death-row inmate Christa Pike has once again raised a fundamental question about capital punishment: should the state have the power to take a life when the justice system can make mistakes?

Pike's lethal-injection execution was halted on 1 October after medical personnel failed to establish the intravenous access needed to administer the drugs. The incident prompted UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk to call on US authorities not to make any further attempt to execute her, saying that prolonged physical and mental suffering caused by multiple failed execution attempts amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

The case is particularly significant because it comes against a long-term global shift away from the death penalty.

According to Amnesty International's latest annual figures, 113 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes by the end of 2025, while another 32 had abolished it for ordinary crimes or were abolitionist in practice. In total, 145 countries had abolished capital punishment in law or practice. Only 54 countries still retain the death penalty. 

The problem with the death penalty is that it is irreversible. Perhaps the strongest argument against capital punishment is that no justice system is infallible.

In the United States, at least 203 people wrongly convicted and sentenced to death have been exonerated since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. A peer-reviewed study cited by the centre estimated that at least 4.1% of people sentenced to death in the US were likely wrongfully convicted.

A prison sentence can be overturned and an innocent person released. An execution cannot be reversed. That distinction becomes particularly important in countries where concerns exist over inadequate legal representation, coerced confessions, unreliable evidence, prosecutorial misconduct or unequal access to justice.

Pike's case illustrates another dimension. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found that her court-appointed lawyers failed to present substantial mitigating evidence during her capital trial and that her prolonged detention on death row constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The commission has recommended reviewing and commuting her sentence.

The global picture is therefore increasingly divided between a relatively small group of countries that continue to execute people and a much larger group that have abolished capital punishment or stopped using it.

Christa Pike's failed execution raises an issue that goes beyond whether lethal injection can be carried out successfully. It highlights the broader problem of giving the state an irreversible power in a justice system where mistakes are possible.

For countries that have abolished the death penalty, the argument is straightforward: punishment can be severe without being irreversible. Once an execution has taken place, however, there is no way to correct a wrongful conviction.