Failed US execution sparks death penalty debate

Global News Podcast

The episode centers on a botched lethal injection in Tennessee that has reignited global debate over capital punishment and triggered the resignation of the state's prison chief. It shifts to

Key takeaways

• Christa Pike survived two lethal injections in Tennessee, resulting in critical hospitalization and prompting prison head Frank Strada to resign.
• Ethiopian government forces entered a Tigrayan regional capital after rebel withdrawals, raising concerns of sustained asymmetric warfare and cross-border conflict with Eritrea.

Main topics

• Death penalty ethics and procedure
• Ethiopia-Tigray conflict dynamics

Notable quotes

"to have one state... twice attempt to execute people and fail within one calendar year is just a bizarre and pretty gruesome record."

Conclusion

Listeners gain a clear, multi-regional snapshot of how procedural failures, political

Transcript preview

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Speaker 3 (1:08) This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Speaker 3 (1:14) I'm Charlotte Gallagher, and in the early hours of Sunday, the 4th of October, these are our main stories. The head of prisons in the US state of Tennessee is quitting following the failed attempt to execute a woman on death row. Ethiopian government troops and their allies take control of the Tigrayan regional capital. And tens of thousands of demonstrators in Spanish cities hit the streets to protest about the national housing crisis. Speaker 3 (1:43) Also in this podcast, investigators say the co-pilot of the fly Dubai plane attacked his captain with an axe kept inside the cockpit and... Speaker 1 (1:54) It's okay to want nice things, who wouldn't? But to be corny, love is much more important. So I would prioritise it, how about that? Speaker 3 (2:03) What new movies are at the New York Film Festival? Speaker 3 (2:11) 29 prisoners have been executed in the US this year. Krista Pike would have been the 30th, but survived two lethal injections. She's now in hospital in a critical condition. Pike's case was already controversial. She was 18 when she murdered Colleen Slemmer and a victim of abuse. Her botched execution has made headlines around the world and seemingly led to the resignation of the head of prisons in Tennessee. Frank Strada said it was in the best interests of Tennessee that he left the role. Pike's lawyer called the resignation justified but said it did nothing to help Krista now. For more, I spoke to Niall Stanage from the Washington-based newspaper The Hill. Speaker 2 (2:55) Whatever one thinks about the death penalty, and of course people have very passionately held views on that, to have one state... twice attempt to execute people and fail within one calendar year is just a bizarre and pretty gruesome record. So Frank Strada is resigning. He'll step down this month, according to the governor of Tennessee. And he himself has said that it is, quote, in the best interests of Tennesseans for him to do so. Do Speaker 3 (3:26) we know much more about Krista Pike's condition at this stage and also what will happen if she does survive? Speaker 2 (3:33) So apparently she is intubated in hospital. She obviously is in a critical condition. We don't know a lot about her medium-term prognosis, but it all seems rather grim. I mean, reading between the lines, I think it's fairly clear that these purportedly lethal drugs clearly did not kill her, but have obviously caused... her to be in the state she's in now, which is in quite a dire state in hospital, but still living. Speaker 3 (4:03) If she does pull through, I mean, it's not unprecedented that the inmates have then been executed. Speaker 2 (4:08) Yeah, I mean, this is one of the big questions that hangs over this case. Christa Pike's execution has been postponed for the moment by the governor of Tennessee, as has, incidentally, another execution separate from this or the other failed one that we're talking about. There was another execution scheduled for what remains of this year, and that has been postponed too. But obviously, there will now be even greater attention on this case than there was before the first botched execution. One would think as a matter of general decency to execute a woman who you have failed to execute but badly injured first time around would seem, I think, indecent to many people. But that doesn't necessarily mean it won't happen. Speaker 3 (4:53) Does the fact that she's a woman shock people more, do you think? Speaker 2 (4:57) The reality of it is it probably... does make her case more visceral. I think it probably gets more attention. I mean, before the debacle of the botched execution, there was still quite a lot of focus on this case, in part because had the execution been completed, she would have been the first woman to be executed by the state of Tennessee in approximately 200 years. I mean, I'm not saying that it would be completely different if it was a man, but the previous botched execution this year was a man. and it didn't become the global news story that this has become. And Speaker 3 (5:33) as you said there, there's huge international interest in this case. Is it affecting the debate on the death penalty? Speaker 2 (5:39) So this is a great question and normally I hate sitting on the fence, but I do think it's a little early to tell. To make a very long story short, there is still a narrow majority in most polling in favour of the death penalty in the United States. Now... The margin has been eroded consistently for a couple of decades. Back in the mid-1990s, there was a massive majority in favour of the death penalty. Now it's about 52 % in Gallup polling. But political change has often been difficult to make, at least at the national level, in part because politicians are loathe to leave themselves open to the charge of being soft on crime. Speaker 3 (6:20) And now, of course, there is a president who is very pro the death penalty. Speaker 2 (6:24) There is. And in fact, that has been connected, at least in some people's minds, to the fact that in recent years, the number of executions has actually gone up. I mean, in 2021, there were only 11 executions in the United States. Last year, there were more than 40. Part of the increase has been driven. by Florida, which is executing many more people than other states. Florida executed 19 people last year. But it is, at least in the minds of, I would say, perhaps critics of the death penalty and critics of Mr. Trump, there is sort of a connection in terms of the zeitgeist, for want of a better term, that is sort of the connective tissue between those two things. Speaker 3 (7:03) Niall Stanage. In Ethiopia, there are fears of a return to an all-out civil war after government troops entered the capital of the northern Tigray region following more than a week of fighting. The Rebel Tigray People's Liberation Front, or TPLF, have withdrawn from the city as the army moves in. Our reporter Richard Hamilton has been monitoring the situation. Speaker 5 (7:27) What we're hearing is that residents are saying that the rebels have packed up. and left in military trucks, and that the federal forces have taken over the city. There are also reports of widespread looting. But the impact is that the rebels will probably now retreat into the mountains, as they've done before, and conduct guerrilla warfare, where they just pick off... targets rather than conducting a conventional war. There'll be