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Why the ‘clean’ execution that was meant for Christa Pike is anything but

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After Tennessee unsuccessfully tried to execute Christa Pike last week, an ambulance whisked her to a Nashville hospital, where the condemned murderer became a patient in urgent need of lifesaving care.

Should Pike recover from two botched administrations of pentobarbital, which left her unconscious and unable to breathe on her own, she might travel that road in reverse after she is well enough to be killed. 

The bizarre episode illustrates the perverse consequences of trying to disguise the brutal reality of capital punishment by dressing it in medical garb.

Although most Americans say murderers like Pike should be executed, the method they prefer suggests they’re squeamish about admitting what that entails. 

Last year, Gallup put support for the death penalty at 52%, 28 percentage points lower than the peak recorded in 1994.

According to several surveys, Americans overwhelmingly view lethal injection, first adopted by Oklahoma in 1977, as “the most humane” method of execution, preferring it to firing squads, hanging, the electric chair and the gas chamber. 

Tennessee governor resists calls to commute Christa Pike’s sentence after botched execution attempt leaves state in ‘uncharted........

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