The attempted execution of Pike was not the first in Tennessee in 2026 that did not go to plan.
The execution of Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering three people in 1994, was postponed in May after staff were unable to find a vein to administer a lethal injection. He was given a one-year reprieve by Governor Bill Lee.
More widely across the US, the issue of botched executions continues to cause alarm.
In 2022, more than a third of executions in the US were botched or highly problematic, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) – an organisation that provides statistics and research on the death penalty but does not take a stance on it morally.
The DPI says lethal injection has the highest rate of botched executions.
An incident in Oklahoma in 2014 gained particular notoriety. The execution of Clayton Lockett was postponed after 20 minutes because the lethal injection of three drugs failed to work properly when one of his veins ruptured, and he went on to writhe and shake uncontrollably.
In the US, 27 of the 50 states have the death penalty under state law. The federal government can also carry out executions after President Donald Trump, a supporter of capital punishment, ended a moratorium last year, However, it is yet to actually carry out any executions since then.
