Christa Pike , the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on September 30, 2026. However, the planned execution drew attention from the United Nations human rights experts, as they called on US authorities to stop it.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has not announced any plans to grant clemency, and no stay of execution had been issued as of Monday. In a statement issued Monday, UN experts urged both the US federal government and the State of Tennessee to halt the execution, arguing that Pike’s nearly three decades on death row, much of it in isolation, amounts to torture under international law. Pike’s then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and another participant, Shadolla Peterson, were also convicted for their roles in the crime. However, neither received a death sentence. Pike’s attorneys have argued for years that she experienced severe childhood abuse, mental illness and neurological impairments that were not properly presented during her trial. Federal court opinions show that appellate litigation has repeatedly examined whether her legal representation met constitutional standards.
If carried out, Pike’s execution would mark the first execution of a woman in Tennessee in more than 200 years, according to state records. Pike, then 18, and two other teenagers lured Slemmer to a secluded area, where she was beaten, stabbed and killed, according to court records. Pike is one of 45 women currently on death row in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Prosecutors said Pike later kept part of the victim’s skull as a trophy.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer, a fellow Job Corps student, in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The UN also questioned whether Pike received a fair trial. They argued that these mitigating factors should have been fully considered before a jury decided to impose the death penalty. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) also supported the request. They have urged authorities to interpret legal protections in the manner most favourable to safeguarding human rights.
Pike has spent most of the last three decades in solitary confinement because she is the only woman sentenced to death in Tennessee, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
They said the state lacked a dedicated women’s death row facility, hence leading to her confinement in a segregation unit intended for inmates with severe mental illness or those considered safety risks. The experts said those conditions, combined with the long wait before execution and constant awareness of her impending death, amount to torture. “The extraordinary duration of Pike’s isolation on death row… amounts to torture,” the experts said in their statement. Her lawyers failed to adequately present evidence of her history of sexual abuse, gender-based violence, mental illness and possible brain damage during sentencing, according to the experts.
The UN experts argue that Pike’s case raises serious human rights concerns.
