What time will Christa Pike be executed? What we know as US Supreme Court overturns last-minute stay

The Supreme Court cleared Tennessee to proceed with Christa Pike’s execution after a last-minute appeals court stay.

Updated on: Oct 1, 2026, 05:32:41 IST

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The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed Tennessee to move forward with the execution of Christa Gail Pike, 50, after a last-minute appeals court order briefly stopped it on Wednesday. The court’s action came after the 6th U.S.

Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay so it could review claims about Pike’s childhood sexual abuse and whether that history received enough attention during sentencing.

The Supreme Court later lifted that stay at Tennessee’s request. If carried out, the execution would make Pike the first woman put to death by Tennessee in more than 200 years.

The Supreme Court's decision cleared the way for Tennessee to carry out the execution, but the court did not announce a new execution time.

Supreme Court clears way for Christa Pike execution

Pike was scheduled to receive a lethal injection at 10 am local time at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. She is the only woman currently on Tennessee’s death row.

The legal situation changed just before the scheduled execution. The 6th Circuit paused it to give judges more time to consider Pike’s arguments. Tennessee then asked the Supreme Court to cancel that order. The Supreme Court granted the request, clearing the way for the state to proceed.

The Supreme Court had already rejected Pike’s request for a stay and her petition for review on September 29.

Christa Pike convicted in 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer

Pike was convicted of killing 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom she knew from the Knoxville Job Corps Center. Prosecutors said Pike and her then-boyfriend lured Slemmer to an isolated area before attacking and killing her.

Pike admitted her role in the murder. Prosecutors said she stabbed Slemmer, struck her with asphalt and kept part of her skull. A pentagram was also carved into Slemmer’s chest, a detail that drew major attention when the case was tried during the period of the 1990s “satanic panic.”

Pike was 18 years old when the crime happened. Her attorneys have argued that her age, mental health problems and severe childhood abuse should have received greater consideration when she was sentenced to death.

Christa Pike lawyers challenge death sentence over abuse claims

Pike’s legal team has pointed to a history of severe sexual abuse and rape during her childhood. Her lawyers say those experiences were not fully presented to the jury during the sentencing phase.

The 6th Circuit’s temporary stay was linked to those claims. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the court’s other liberal justices in dissent, objected to the Supreme Court lifting the stay.

“The Court’s decision to vacate that stay interferes with the Sixth Circuit’s routine administrative handling of a capital case and unnecessarily prevents that court from giving due consideration to Pike’s claim,” Sotomayor wrote. “Worse, the Court grants such extraordinary relief solely to allow the State to execute Pike before litigation over her conviction has properly run its course in the lower courts.”

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