Christa Pike case underscores prevalence of botched executions in US

The botched execution of Christa Pike has sparked debate about the death penalty in the United States, where lethal injections, experts say, are frequently marred by mishaps and incompetence.

The attempted execution of Pike, a woman sentenced to death for her participation in the murder of a classmate when she was 18 years old, was called off after two doses of pentobarbital failed to kill her on September 30.

Witnesses reported that she continued to breathe, snore and lift parts of her body off the gurney to which she was strapped even after the lethal injections were administered. Pike’s lawyers said that she had regained consciousness at the hospital on October 6 but faces a long path to recovery.

Governor Bill Lee announced a pause on executions in the state and promised a “comprehensive, third-party review” of the incident, the second case this year in which Tennessee authorities have called off an execution after a failed lethal injection attempt.

The Tennessee Department of Correction declined to comment when asked by Al Jazeera why the execution attempt failed and whether it planned to try to execute Pike again.

While the case has attracted nationwide attention, experts say that botched execution attempts , largely carried out through lethal injection, are a disturbingly common feature of capital punishment in the US.

“This is an opportunity for everyone to stop and really carefully examine all of the ways in which this execution went wrong and to make good decisions about how to move forward, if we’re going to move forward with this method of execution,” said Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit research group based in Washington, DC.

Of the various methods of execution in the US, lethal injection is by far the most common. It is also among the least reliable.