Governor Bill Lee said Corrections Commissioner Frank Strada will leave later this month after Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital on Wednesday. Executions in the state are paused pending an independent review.
Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada will step down later this month, Governor Bill Lee said on Saturday, after the failed execution of Christa Pike. The New York Times, the BBC and The Tennessean all reported the resignation.
Pike, sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer, survived two doses of pentobarbital on Wednesday. Her lawyers said in court filings that by Thursday evening she was unconscious and on a ventilator, with burns and blisters on both arms. Lee ordered an independent review, called the episode deeply disturbing, and halted remaining executions this year, including that of Gary Wayne Sutton, which had been set for 3 December.
Strada said resigning was in the best interest of Tennesseans while the review proceeds. He said he still believed the department had followed the approved protocol and that he would cooperate. Lee said on Thursday that, so far as he knew, the department had followed the protocol vetted by the attorney general’s office.
The Tennessean reported that two of three execution attempts under Strada in 2026 failed. An attempt to execute Tony Carruthers in May was called off after staff could not set intravenous lines.
Pike’s lawyers said the resignation was justified but did nothing to help her, and called the failure systemic. No findings from the independent review had been published.
People Sentiments Negative
- Pike’s lawyers called the resignation justified but said it does nothing to help her
- They said the failed execution reflected a systemic failure beyond one official
- Governor Bill Lee called the episode deeply disturbing