NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The legal team for the only woman on Tennessee's death row says they have filed a petition for clemency.
Christa Pike, 50, is scheduled for execution Sept. 30. If executed, she will be the first woman in Tennessee put to death by the death penalty in more than 200 years and first person Tennessee has executed "in the modern death penalty era who was a teenager at the time of the offense," according to her legal team.
Pike's legal team is asking Gov. Bill Lee to commute her death sentence to life in prison without possibility of parole.
"Commuting her sentence to life without possibility of parole does not absolve her of her guilt," her legal team wrote in a Thursday release. "To the contrary, it would continue to hold her accountable for the remainder of her natural life."
Pike was convicted in 1996 for the 1995 torture killing of fellow Jobs Corps member Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 years old at the time of the murder. Her legal team argues that Pike's experience of repeated sexual assaults, including childhood rapes, as well as untreated mental illness and severe trauma, contributed to her actions that night.
"These realities do not excuse what happened," Pike's legal team wrote in the petition for clemency. "But they are essential to understanding how such an unimaginable act became possible and how profoundly adults and institutions failed to support a child in desperate need."
Pike's attorney Kelly Gleason said in the release that Pike has "deep remorse for her actions" after receiving treatment for bipolar disorder and PTSD.
"We call on the governor to consider the tragedy of Christa’s childhood and the way in which the adults and institutions charged with her care consistently failed to protect a vulnerable child," Gleason said in the release. We respectfully urge Governor Lee show Christa mercy.”
Read the full clemency petition here:
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- Carrie Sharp
