Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said Monday he won't stop the execution of Christa Pike. She is set to die by lethal injection at 10 a.m. Central on Wednesday at a Nashville prison. In 1995, Pike and two other teens lured Colleen Slemmer to a secluded spot. Slemmer was a 19-year-old classmate at a Knoxville job training center. Pike and her boyfriend beat and tortured her to death. Pike was 18. Her boyfriend, who was 17, got life with a chance of parole, and the third teen got probation. The Tennessee Supreme Court turned down her request for a stay last week. She has one request left, at the U.S. Supreme Court. It hadn't ruled as of Tuesday morning. If the execution goes ahead, Pike will be the first woman Tennessee has executed in more than 200 years.

1. Justice Is Three Decades Overdue

The governor, the state and Slemmer's mother say the sentence is lawful and the family has waited long enough.

The governor looked at the case and let the sentence stand. "After deliberate consideration of Christa Gail Pike's request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene," Lee said. In its filing to the U.S. Supreme Court, the state says it's "long past time" for Slemmer's mother to get the "peace" she seeks.

Her mother says a hard childhood doesn't explain a murder. May Martinez, Slemmer's mother, opposes clemency. "Most kids do go through a lot of stuff, and they don't go out and kill," she said. "Maybe now finally we have the justice," she told WKRN. "It may not bring my daughter back but it might save another person from getting killed because she will do it again."

Her mother plans to watch the execution. Martinez says she'll attend the execution with a photo of her daughter. Pike took a piece of Slemmer's skull back to campus after the killing, and Martinez fought for years to get it back. Pike was also later convicted of attempted murder for strangling another inmate.

2. Eighteen Is Too Young to Be Executed

Her lawyers say science shows an 18-year-old brain isn't an adult brain, and every man Tennessee sentenced to death at 18 in the modern era got off death row.

Her lawyers say an 18-year-old is still a kid. Her lawyers answered the governor Monday. They are federal defender Stephen Ferrell, plus Kelly Gleason and Randy Spivey of Tennessee's post-conviction defender office. "With this decision, the State of Tennessee is ignoring what both science and our legal system have decided: an 18-year-old brain is not an adult brain, and 18 is too young to face execution," they said. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court banned executions for crimes committed before age 18. Pike was 18, so the ban didn't cover her. In 2019, federal appeals Judge Jane Stranch wrote that her sentence "likely" violates the Constitution because of her age.

Every man in her position got off death row. Tennessee has sentenced seven other people to death in its modern death-penalty era for crimes they committed at 18. All were men. "All seven male death sentences predated Ms. Pike's, and all have subsequently been vacated," her lawyers wrote. M. Christopher Coffey, who once defended her boyfriend, backed clemency too. He says their sentences split over a small age gap, even though their guilt was no different.

She says she's sorry. "I feel remarkably remorseful for what I did," Pike said in a documentary. Her lawyers wrote in her clemency petition that a jury never heard about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child. The jury also never heard about her untreated bipolar disorder and PTSD.

3. The Execution Would Torture a Rape Survivor

Survivor advocates say strapping down a woman raped as a child is cruel. UN experts say her years on death row already amount to torture.

Advocates say the execution itself would retraumatize her. Twelve groups that work with sexual-violence survivors filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court warning she could suffer severe PTSD flashbacks during the execution. Her lawyers argue that male executioners strapping down a woman repeatedly raped as a child would be unconstitutionally cruel. Dr. Bethany Brand, a trauma expert who examined Pike, called it "a form of dying that is uniquely and needlessly cruel." Tennessee says female officers will transport her. The state will try to have only female staff watch her, and it will provide a privacy screen.

Human rights experts say her years on death row are already torture. United Nations human rights experts and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights urged a halt this month. "The extraordinary duration of Pike's isolation on death row, her detention conditions, compounded by her vulnerable situation and prolonged awareness of her impending execution, amounts to torture," they said. Amnesty International asked Lee to stop it.

Protesters say you can condemn the crime and still spare her. Opponents marched from the prison to the State Capitol on Sunday. "What Christa Pike did was monstrous, but she is not a monster," said Abraham Bonowitz of the group Death Penalty Action.

Where This Lands

Lee has said no, and the Tennessee Supreme Court has said no. Slemmer's mother has waited three decades and says the execution may finally bring justice. Pike's lawyers say she would be the first person Tennessee executes in the modern era for a crime committed at 18. Survivor advocates say strapping her down for the execution would itself be cruel. The U.S. Supreme Court still has her request, and the execution is set for 10 a.m. Central on Wednesday.

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