Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has suspended executions in his state after officials twice administered the lethal injection drug pentobarbital to death row prisoner Christa Pike, 50, who kept breathing and was rushed by ambulance to a Nashville hospital, Creators Syndicate columnist Jacob Sullum reported on 6 October. Days later the Pentagon announced the US military would conduct its first execution by firing squad since World War II, the ABC reported on 9 October.
Key facts
- Pike was left unconscious and unable to breathe on her own after two administrations of pentobarbital, according to Creators Syndicate; the ABC reported she had begun talking again days later, in what it called the first recorded case of someone surviving the drug.
- Tennessee officials declined to say whether they would try to execute her again, the ABC reported, while her legal team filed an emergency motion to preserve evidence in and around the execution chamber.
- Gallup, a Washington-based analytics company, put US support for the death penalty at 52 per cent in late 2025 — a five-decade low, down from a 1994 peak of 80 per cent.
- Executions in the US rose to 47 in 2025 from 25 in 2024, the ABC reported, against a 1999 peak of 98.
- US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the military firing squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan would be live streamed on 3 December.
Where Fiji stands
Fiji has no death penalty left to debate. Capital punishment was abolished here for ordinary crimes in 1979, the 2013 Constitution guarantees the right to life, and the last provision that preserved it — in the Republic of Fiji Military Forces Act — was repealed in 2015, which is why Amnesty International, the organisation whose global execution figures the ABC cites, classes Fiji as abolitionist for all crimes. The American reversal therefore runs against a settled point of Fijian law, including on the method Fiji discarded last: death by shooting under military discipline. Fiji News runs this as a World brief rather than a domestic story, and has separately covered US decisions with direct Fijian consequences, among them a US sanctions decision landing on a Suva hotelier.
What happened in Tennessee
Sullum wrote that Pike, a convicted murderer, became a patient in urgent need of lifesaving care, and that should she recover she might travel the road back to the execution chamber once well enough to be killed. Governor Lee described the episode as a “tragedy” and suspended executions until he can clarify exactly what went wrong, according to Creators Syndicate. Fiji News covered the failed lethal injection attempt when it occurred.
The two sources frame Tennessee’s recent record differently but do not contradict each other. Creators Syndicate calls Pike’s case the state’s second such failure this year; the ABC calls it the second failed attempt there in the past six months. Both counts are two, and a six-month window falls inside 2026, so the two reports point to the same pair of incidents — neither identifies the earlier one.
Pike’s case
Pike was sentenced to die in 1996 over the murder of classmate Colleen Slemmer, committed when Pike was 18, the ABC reported. Her legal team has argued that severe neglect and sexual abuse throughout her life left her with brain damage and diminished control over her own actions.
The firing squad announcement
Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring dozens more at a military base in 2009, according to the ABC. Asked whether Hasan had made any final requests, Hegseth told a conservative TV outlet: “Don’t care.” Fiji News reported the Pentagon’s plan to livestream the shooting separately.
Falling support, rising executions
The same Gallup poll found 44 per cent of Americans now oppose capital punishment, the highest level of opposition since 1966, the ABC reported. A separate survey by the Pew Research Center found nearly two-thirds of respondents supported the death penalty for people convicted of murder — up six percentage points on April 2021. Both polls were taken before Pike’s failed execution.
The ABC reported that Florida accounted for 40 per cent of 2025’s executions, that Louisiana joined Alabama in using nitrogen gas, and that South Carolina carried out the first national firing squad execution in 15 years, with a subsequent autopsy indicating the shooters missed his heart. The US Supreme Court denied every request for a stay of execution throughout the year.
On policy, the ABC noted that former president Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 of the 40 prisoners on federal death row in his final weeks, and that in January 2025 President Donald Trump issued an order calling capital punishment an “essential tool”.
Which method fails most often
Sullum cited a Death Penalty Information Center review of cases from 1890 through 2010 that found lethal injection had the highest rate of botched executions, about 7 per cent, against 5 per cent for lethal gas, 3 per cent for hanging, 2 per cent for electrocution and zero for firing squads. Fordham University law professor Deborah Denno told The New York Times the firing squad was, to her, the most humane method, though it is perceived to be the most brutal.
Five states currently allow firing squads in at least some circumstances, Creators Syndicate reported, and three prisoners in South Carolina chose that method over lethal injection last year.
The global picture
Amnesty International recorded the highest number of executions worldwide in 2025 since 1981, a 78 per cent rise its annual report attributed to “a handful of governments determined to rule by fear”, the ABC reported. Iran was the main driver with 2,159 executions, more than double its 2024 figure, while the report listed the United States among those leading the increase and called that alarming.
Kyinzom Dhongdue, spokesperson for Amnesty International Australia, told the ABC both Pike’s botched execution and the firing squad plan were “deeply, deeply disturbing”, said the administration showed disregard for human life and dignity, and described the public execution as reflecting an authoritarian shift.
Macquarie University criminologist Vincent Hurley told the ABC that Americans cannot escape the notion that the state has tried and failed to execute someone twice, and that the spectacle collapsed what many had thought of as a humane method. Sullum’s column in Creators Syndicate argued the search for more humane methods aims to relieve the public’s discomfort rather than the prisoner’s.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do lethal injection drugs cost US states?
Jacob Sullum wrote in Creators Syndicate that pentobarbital has proven exorbitantly expensive, costing as much as US$300,000 for each dose, and that pharmaceutical companies are loath to supply the drugs. He added that because the drug degrades relatively quickly, much of that money can be wasted when a dose goes unused beyond its 90-day shelf life.
Did Christa Pike’s trial hear evidence about her background?
Macquarie University criminologist Vincent Hurley told the ABC that Pike’s sexual abuse was never disclosed when she went to trial. He said no one got a full picture of her life leading up to the murder, and that whether it would have changed the outcome is unknown.
When did US states adopt lethal injection, and what did the Supreme Court say about it?
Creators Syndicate reported that Oklahoma first adopted lethal injection in 1977, and that by 2008 three dozen states had followed. That year the Supreme Court upheld Kentucky’s three-drug method, with Chief Justice John Roberts describing it as the result of “an earnest desire to provide for a progressively more humane manner of death”.
How many public executions did Amnesty International record in 2025?
Amnesty International Australia spokesperson Kyinzom Dhongdue told the ABC that Amnesty reported 17 public executions in 2025, in what she called very authoritarian environments such as Afghanistan and Iran. She said such events turn punishment into a spectacle used to make state power visible and create fear.
