As botched executions become increasingly common, and states’ zeal to execute seemingly begins to supersede due process, the bulwark values of “restitution” and “deterrence” that capital punishment purports to uphold should be reanalyzed with increased scrutiny concerning today’s circumstances. Potential innocents remaining on death row, coupled with rising botched or unintentionally torturous executions, paint an unjust current reality of the death penalty and are a requisite backdrop to recognize when deciding the future of capital punishment in America.
At 7:27 PM on September 30th, 2026, the curtain rose in the execution chamber of Riverbend Maximum Security to reveal 50-year-old Christa Pike strapped to a gurney, set to die for her brutal 1995 torture and murder of classmate Colleen Slemmer.1 Injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital, the execution was meant to be swift and painless. Instead, Pike remained conscious, gasping, snoring heavily, and writhing in pain–eventually knocking her gurney sheets loose. After an hour of suffering, the curtain closed at 8:53 PM, shielding the scene from media view. Today, Pike’s medical and legal future remains uncertain; yet, one fact remains crystal clear: her execution was a failure and a complete miscarriage of justice.2 Yet, Pike’s failed execution is just a drop in the bucket of a practice that has continually failed to deliver its promise of final justice, both in physical practicality and in the societal benefits it supposedly purports.
The death penalty has been a contentious staple of U.S. justice for nearly its entire existence, though its practical failures have increased sharply within recent history.3 Historically the U.S. experienced an execution “botch” rate of about 3%.4 Yet, the botch rate for lethal injections, which have grown rapidly in popularity, sit at a starkly higher 8.4%, when measured from 2010 to 2020.5 While often lauded as a “humane” alternative, lethal injection has consistently produced deeply unsettling results.6 Over 84% of post-execution autopsies have found fluid in the deceased’s lungs–a telltale sign of a painful death.7 Beyond these botched executions, which have questionable 8th Amendment implications, the potential for wrongful executions is rising too, as states like Tennessee are accused of expediting executions before courts can have proper time for full legal prudence. Justice Sotomayor, dissenting in Nelsen v. Pike, which authorized the execution of Pike before lower court litigation had concluded, claims that Tennessee was seeking emergency expedited executions “solely to execute Pike before litigation over her conviction has run its course in lower courts,” and that there is “no reason to short circuit the ordinary process of appellate review, particularly in light of the grave consequences of an erroneous decision.”8 Pike’s guilt was absolute, but the zeal of the state to execute fast and supersede due process poses dangers not only for individuals challenging wrongful sentences, but also for innocents who have been wrongfully convicted. A 2014 study found that at least 4.1% of death penalty convictions were wrongly decided, with only 1.6% experiencing proper exoneration prior to their execution.9 These statistics indicate that there is not only a non-negligible number of innocents who have been or may currently be on death row, but also that should anyone reach the execution chamber, their deaths are increasingly likely to be botched or extraordinarily painful from a lack of comprehensive understanding surrounding lethal injection limitations.
Now, many will argue that there is little value in worrying about the comfort and life condition of indisputable criminals convicted of horrific crimes, and that the values of restitution and deterrence should prevail. That said, promises of the 8th Amendment–torturous punishment and the inescapability of death foreclosing exoneration or due process appeals–should at least lead us to question the validity of the arguments of restitution and deterrence. Restitution for victims, while primarily moral and less empirically measurable, holds validity when the process is assuredly proportionate to the crime and efficient in carrying out justice; yet, as argued above, a system that enables the execution of innocents or unintentional brutality is neither just nor an efficient form of restitution. After all, the proportionality of responding to crime with botched executions is unknown in and of itself, and a complete miscarriage of justice when applied to innocents. As for deterrence, the National Research Council found existing pro-deterrence research “fundamentally flawed.”10 At the same time, 88% of criminologists believe there to be no deterrence effect to capital punishment.11
As Tennessee governor Bill Lee pauses further executions, politicians across the aisle once again revisit paths forward for capital punishment in America.12 Perhaps this results in new restrictions that confirm criminality and promote humane execution. Perhaps it’s a national abolition of the death penalty. Perhaps it’s keeping it in name only. But, should the status quo continue, so too may grave miscarriages of justice, in which more innocents and more botched executions continue to bloody up our criminal justice system.
- Associated Press, “How Tennessee’s Failed Execution of Christa Pike Unfolded, Minute-by-Minute,” Bangor Daily News, October 1, 2026, https://www.bangordailynews.com/2026/10/01/nation/how-tennessees-failed-execution-of-christa-pike-unfolded-minute-by-minute.
↩︎ - Associated Press, “Tennessee Governor Halts Executions After Christa Gail Pike Survives Lethal Injection,” OPB, October 1, 2026, https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/01/tennessee-governor-halts-executions-after-christa-gail-pike-survives-lethal-injection/.
↩︎ - Meg Tirrell, “Why Botched Lethal Injections Are Becoming More Common,” CNN, via KEYT, https://keyt.com/?p=1482047.
↩︎ - Death Penalty Information Center, “Botched Executions,” Death Penalty Information Center, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/botched-executions.
↩︎ - Austin Sarat, “It Is Time to End the Lethal Injection Mess,” Verdict, June 27, 2022, https://verdict.justia.com/2022/06/27/it-is-time-to-end-the-lethal-injection-mess.
↩︎ - Death Penalty Information Center, “BOOKS: ‘Gruesome Spectacles’ Reveals the History of Botched Executions,” Death Penalty Information Center, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/books-gruesome-spectacles-reveals-the-history-of-botched-executions.
↩︎ - Death Penalty Information Center, “As Lethal Injection Turns Forty, States Botch a Record Number of Executions,” Death Penalty Information Center, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/as-lethal-injection-turns-forty-states-botch-a-record-number-of-executions.
↩︎ - Nelsen v. Pike. No. 26A428 (U.S. Sept. 30, 2026). https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/26a428.html.
↩︎ - Samuel R. Gross et al., “Rate of False Conviction of Criminal Defendants Who Are Sentenced to Death,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014, https://repository.law.umich.edu/facarticles/1591.
↩︎ - National Research Council, “Deterrence and the Death Penalty,” National Academies Press, 2012, https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/13363/chapter/2.
↩︎ - University of Colorado Boulder, “Death Penalty Does Not Deter Murder, According to New CU-Boulder Study,” CU Boulder Today, June 16, 2009, https://www.colorado.edu/today/2009/06/16/death-penalty-does-not-deter-murder-according-new-cu-boulder-study.
↩︎ - 12. NPR, “Failed ‘Torturous’ Execution Attempt on Christa Pike Reignites Death Penalty Debate,” NPR, October 2, 2026, https://www.npr.org/2026/10/02/nx-s1-5988832/christa-pike-reignites-death-penalty-debate;
Associated Press, “Tennessee Governor Halts Executions After Christa Gail Pike Survives Lethal Injection,” OPB, October 1, 2026, https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/01/tennessee-governor-halts-executions-after-christa-gail-pike-survives-lethal-injection/.
↩︎
