Christa Pike survived an execution attempt in Tennessee on Sept. 30, 2026, after receiving two doses of pentobarbital, a lethal drug. Gov. Bill Lee has temporarily suspended executions in the state.

Pike became the first person ever to get full doses of the drugs intended to kill her and to live nonetheless. But she is not the only person to have survived an execution failure in the Volunteer State.

Tennessee set out to execute Tony Carruthers on May 21, 2026, but he lived to tell about it.

Carruthers, who was sentenced to death for a 1994 triple murder, survived his date with death when the execution team members could find only one suitable vein in which to secure an IV, but not, as USA Today reports, the “backup line, which is required under the state’s lethal injection protocol.”

After the failed attempt, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee gave Carruthers a one-year reprieve, a decision the governor did not explain.

What happened to Pike and Carruthers is a reminder that things frequently go wrong in executions, even if in almost all cases the problem is resolved and the execution is completed.

Indeed, in the past 80 years, only eight other people have had experiences like Carruthers’ and Pike’s and survived execution attempts.

Four of those execution “survivors” were killed by a second execution attempt, while others escaped that fate. Three others died on death row; one of them after the state agreed not to try to execute him a second time, and one of them is still alive and awaiting his fate.

Having studied capital punishment for decades, I know the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment” has shaped constitutional discussions around failed executions. But so far, courts have not stood in the way when state governments have wanted to try to execute the same man again.

Not just a lethal injection problem

Carruthers and Pike survived lethal injection attempts, but execution failures have not been confined to........

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