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AXIOS (Adam Tamburin) - Tennessee inmate Christa Pike's execution halted an hour beforehand Wed Sep 30 15:31:40 2026

Death row inmate Christa Pike got a last-minute reprieve Wednesday when a federal appeals court stopped her execution about an hour before it was set to take place in Nashville. The latest: The court ordered "a short stay of execution" just before 9am CDT so it could consider an ongoing legal battle between Pike's attorneys and the state. - Pike's attorneys argue her history of child sexual abuse wasn't presented to the jury before she was sentenced to death in 1996. Between the lines: The order stops Wednesday's execution and puts it on hold while the court considers this motion. - The state supreme court could still set another execution date in the future depending on the outcome of this legal fight. What they're saying: "The interests of justice and the finality of Pike's impending execution compel the entry of a short stay of execution in order to properly analyze the parties' fully briefed arguments and resolve the issues on the merits," the court wrote. - Two members of a three-judge panel backed the order. The third judge disagreed, describing the legal fight as a "last-ditch meritless effort to delay a lawful execution." Zoom in: Pike, the only woman on Tennessee's death row, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 at the time. - Two other people were convicted in the case, but only Pike got the death penalty. - Pike's advocates do not contest her guilt, but they argue that her history of childhood abuse should have been presented to the jury during the sentencing phase as "important context and mitigation for the offense."