US Supreme Court allows execution of Christa Pike to go ahead

For context, the US Supreme Court has cleared the way for Tennessee inmate Christa Pike to be executed, overturning a last-minute reprieve.

Key points

• The top court's three liberal justices – Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – dissented in Wednesday evening's order.
• Pike, 50, has been awaiting execution since she was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer.
• Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and murdered Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old they met at a job training camp for troubled teens.
• If the execution proceeds, Christa Pike will be the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
• The killing by lethal injection was scheduled for Wednesday morning before judges from the Sixth Circuit Appeals court halted the execution.

Notably, the killing by lethal injection was scheduled for Wednesday morning before judges from the Sixth Circuit Appeals court halted the execution. Tennessee's attorney general then immediately requested the Supreme Court to overrule the lower court's stay.

If the execution proceeds, Christa Pike will be the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. It was not immediately clear when the execution would take place.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh granted the application to vacate the stay of the execution. No explanation for lifting the stay was provided in the order.

For context, the top court's three liberal justices – Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – dissented in Wednesday evening's order.

Sotomayor wrote that she dissents since the decision cleared the way for Tennessee to execute Pike before her pending legal challenges to her conviction "can be properly considered".

"Tennessee's desire to expedite Pike's execution by a few days or even weeks cannot outweigh her 'fundamental interest in own life, " she remarked.

In a ruling earlier on Wednesday, judges from the Sixth Circuit Appeals court paused the execution saying they needed more time to consider the arguments in Pike's case.

According to Pike's lawyers, for years, the state of Tennessee argued in court that she had lied concerning being sexually abused as a child.

But at a recent hearing regarding her execution method, the state stated it did not dispute she suffered sexual abuse and rape.

Pike's legal team asked the appeals court to send her motion back to the district court, arguing that if the federal courts based their ruling on the state's earlier claim that she was lying, then the federal review was affected.

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court refused to hear a different appeal from Pike.

Tennessee governor additionally denied a clemency request this week from the death row inmate.

Taken together, the developments around US Supreme Court allows execution of Christa Pike to go ahead point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.