Bad laws and bad processes still require a willing participant
By George Valadie
I remember it was a Friday when Christa Pike was finally able to get my full attention.
She’d been in the news here and there since 1995 but especially of late. Mostly a Tennessee story but one that exploded across the nation when folks awoke the morning before.
I had been on the road visiting some Catholic schools when the national media fire spread like it can often do. And it first crossed my path when my Thursday-morning routine got around to checking my phone for any late-Wednesday texts from my wife and daughters.
It was early but they were already at it.
“Did ya’ll see… ?”
“Can you believe… ?”
“It’s insane that… !”
So, I dug in, scanned the headlines, felt exactly what they were feeling but quickly moved on since work awaited. She and her story had to take a back seat.
It was the next day—a Friday—when I finally had time to ponder her and her story. If you’ve missed it by chance, she and two others murdered a schoolmate in 1995. Brutally so. Torturously so. Even talked about doing it the day before.
A Tennessee jury did what the law allows them to do and sentenced her to death.
On a Wednesday night, 31 years later, the state put her to death.
Or should I say they tried.
By Thursday morning, the media reported of a lengthy struggle to find a vein. And two injections later, she lay there, still among the living. She has since been discharged from a local hospital and has returned to the women’s prison in Nashville while the governor has suspended all future executions until an investigation of the Tennessee procedures can be conducted.
An execution gone wrong and a story gone viral.
And it wasn’t even the first time. The irony of medical care after a failed execution is a story of its own. But not for today.
First and foremost, I am anti-capital punishment. Always have been. Hoping I always will be. I abhor the law that allows it; I question the people who passed it. No matter how brutal, no matter how torturous.
I also cannot fathom what the victim’s family has endured and is now forced to relive. Nor can I say with any certainty—can any of us really?—that I wouldn’t change my stance if such evil had befallen one of my own family.
I don’t think so and I hope not, but justice can and often does feel different for loved ones in grief.
Since the federal Supreme Court invalidated all existing death-penalty statutes in 1972, the states who were bound and determined to have it found their way back. Tennessee is one of those and enacted a constitutional replacement in 1978. Since then, 17 individuals have been executed.
No. 18 was botched.
According to state law, the execution IV team is to consist of at least two people who must undergo annual training at a four-hour workshop. Four. And while a doctor must also be present, he/she is not expected to participate unless something goes awry.
I cringed when I read there are monthly practice sessions. And commencing two weeks before an execution, extra rehearsal times are scheduled.
It was a Friday when the most famous of all executions took place, so my mind drifted back to Jesus.
Though 2,000 years separated them, how different was this person’s task from the man who nailed Christ to the cross? How long had that soldier known he’d been the chosen one to kill the Chosen One? How much training did he get and how exactly do you think they prepared for such a task?
Soldiers of all ages have been selected from among the ranks to do other things besides go to war. And sometimes death is involved.
Luckily, their involvement has changed over the years. Now, some are selected to serve as Honor Guard while others play “Taps.” Some fly overhead in the “Missing Man” formation and some fire their 21-gun salute.
But there was a time when someone was chosen to pull the trigger or swing the ax. And for the soldiers of Caesar’s long-ago Rome, someone got picked to nail the nails.
Was he the strongest? The meanest? Was this considered a punishment detail or would it have been considered a reward, a privilege for being at the top of his class?
Was it just his turn? His day in the rotation? Or his hour? There were several others that day, you know. Would someone have nailed him to the cross if he hadn’t done it well? Did he volunteer? Did several? Did he get a promotion for a job well done?
For current-day executions, the identities of these team members are protected. And no one is required to serve.
But according to Tennessee law, those who do must have a “willingness to serve.”
I wish I didn’t know that.
I understand the outrage at what she did. I can’t imagine how that family is coping, even now these many years later. I can even understand how some of them might want to be the one.
But I’m not sure how one unrelated, uninvolved “soldier” volunteers for that duty. There was a time when criminals were shot to death by multiple shooters, most with blanks so no one really knew. But here, there’s only one injector and he or she will have 14 days to think about it in advance and a lifetime to think about it after that.
Comparing the execution of Christ to Christa Pike can get a person in trouble. Not the point. It’s not about the victim, it’s more about the fact that someone has to get the job … or wants to get the job.
Some Roman soldier awoke that day, went to work on a Friday, likely thinking about the weekend, and executed the Son of Man. Pilate and Herod strike me as two demanding bosses. I choose to believe he simply had no choice.
As for Christa Pike and all scheduled to follow her, I’m forced to hope no one will make that choice.
Dear God—Your commandment seems clear, but some of us are not. Are there any other messages you can send? Amen.
George Valadie is a parishioner at St. Stephen Church in Chattanooga and author of the book “We Lost Our Fifth Fork … and other moments when we need some perspective.”