Tennessee Corrections Commissioner Frank Strada Resigns Amid Fallout From Failed Christa Pike Execution

The commissioner of Tennessee’s Department of Correction has stepped down following the failed lethal injection of Christa Pike, Governor Bill Lee announced Saturday.

Lee confirmed that Frank Strada will depart from his role later this month. His resignation comes after the botched execution that left Pike critically injured and fighting for her life in a hospital.

Pike, 50, remains unconscious and on a ventilator after two doses of pentobarbital failed to kill her during Wednesday’s procedure. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer.

This marks the second failed execution in Tennessee this year. In May, the state suspended an execution when medical personnel were unable to locate a suitable vein in the inmate’s arm.

In a statement, Lee thanked Strada for “his willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment.”

Strada, in the same statement, maintained that the Department of Correction “carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol.”

Governor Lee, who previously denied clemency for Pike, has now suspended all executions through the end of the year while a comprehensive review is conducted.

Had the lethal injection been successful, Pike would have become the first woman executed by Tennessee in over two centuries.

Nationally, only 18 women have been executed since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

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