Christa Pike’s Lawyers Face New Roadblock as Tennessee Fights to Keep Execution Drug Secret

The state of Tennessee is fighting to keep key evidence from lawyers representing a death row inmate who survived a failed execution.

State officials want to prevent attorneys for Christa Pike from inspecting the drug used during her September 30 execution attempt because they fear it could expose the identity of their supplier, according to a report published by ABC News on Tuesday, November 10.

Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital, a drug used in lethal injections. Her attorneys believe the substance may have entered her arms instead of her bloodstream, causing burns and blisters, per the report.

A judge previously ordered Tennessee officials to preserve evidence from the failed execution and allowed Pike’s legal team to examine any remaining drugs.

However, according to the article, the state filed a request on November 6 asking the judge to reverse the portion of the order allowing attorneys to inspect and test the pentobarbital.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti argued that allowing access to the drug could expose its supplier, whose identity is protected under state law.

“Pike’s counsel and experts cannot be allowed to see, handle, or otherwise get the information on the leftover vials of pentobarbital from Pike’s attempted execution,” Skrmetti wrote in court documents, ABC News reported.

Pike’s attorney, Luke Ihnen, insisted that identifying the supplier “has never been the goal” of the legal proceedings, the outlet reported.

“We still don’t know exactly what happened that night,” Ihnen said, per the report. “Those types of things are all valuable pieces of information about what went wrong.”

As Globe previously reported, Pike broke her silence in an October 30 statement shared by her attorneys after spending days hospitalized on a ventilator.

“Several days later I woke up alone in a hospital confused and in pain. There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain,” she said, per TMZ.

“My body hurts,” Pike added. “My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak.”

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

Her attorneys are seeking to have her death sentence commuted to life in prison, per ABC News. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has maintained, per WSMV4, that Pike will remain on death row unless a court rules otherwise.