Ohio Senator Nickie Antonio comments on failed Tennessee execution attempt on Christa Pike and opposes the death penalty...By Clevelandurbannews.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader
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Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com
By Kathy Wray Colemana, editor, associate publisher.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Today, Senate Democratic Leader Nickie J. Antonio (D-Lakewood) released a statement after Tennessee failed to execute Christa Pike, 50, by administering two doses of a lethal drug. Her attorneys told reporters that they are puzzled and that their client is currently hospitalized.
The execution was being carried out at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee, where state executions are held.
After being given two doses of pentobarbital, it failed to stop her heartbeat or render her unconscious
Convicted of murder, Pike is on death row in Tennessee, the only woman in the state on death row. In 1995, when she was 18, Pike murdered her 19-year-old Job Corps classmate Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. Pike and two friends led Slemmer into the woods where they tortured and killed her. In 1996, at the age of 20, Pike was sentenced to death, making her one of the youngest women to receive a death sentence in the United States during that period.
While Blacks are disproportionately represented on death row nationwide, a woman on death row is a rarity. As reported by the Death Penalty Information Center, there are approximately 45 active female death row inmates in the U.S., accounting for roughly 2% of all prisoners under a death sentence.
Since the reinstatement of the modern death penalty in 1976, 18 women have been executed, representing about 1% of all total U.S. executions during that period. There are approximately 45 active female death row inmates in the U.S., accounting for roughly 2% of all prisoners under a death sentence.
"All forms of capital punishment already qualify as 'cruel and unusual,' which is forbidden by our Constitution. To force any individual to be injected with two full doses of lethal drugs can only be described as state-sanctioned torture," said Sen. Antonio, whose 23rd state legislative district includes most of Cleveland’s 15 wards. "This is the second time this year the state of Tennessee has failed to carry out a so-called 'lawful execution.' It is time we examine our flawed criminal justice system and acknowledge that the death penalty is not justice. As a society, we must be better than our most heinous criminals."
Antonio is the lead sponsor of S.B. 133 and S.B. 134, bipartisan legislation in the Ohio Senate that would abolish the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most-read Black digital newspaper and blog in Ohio. Tel. 216-659-0473. Email-editor@clevelandurbannews.com
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