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(The Center Square) – Lawyers for Christa Pike are asking Tennessee second-term Republican Gov. Bill Lee to commute her sentence after two failed attempts at execution on Wednesday evening.

She was hospitalized in critical condition, on a ventilator and unconscious, following the botched attempt to end her life. Long-term recovery prospects had not been publicly shared through midday Friday.

“Christa has endured punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty,” said Randy Spivey. “The governor must commute Christa’s sentence now.”

Lee earlier this year ordered officials to wait at least a year before trying to execute Tony Carruthers. In May, carrying out his planned death penalty was stopped when a secondary IV line couldn’t be started in his left arm, left hand or left foot after getting an IV into his right arm. There was no central line.

Lee has put on hold the scheduled Dec. 3 execution of Gary Wayne Sutton, pending an investigation into what happened to Pike.

It was known beforehand Pike has elevated platelets. Thrombocytosis, as it is medically known, causes issues with clotting at injection sites and bleeding that can impact the lungs.

Spivey, in a news conference, said he counted seven spots from needles on her left arm. He said one unsuccessful needle bent.

According to testimony and prosecutors, Pike was 18 in 1995 when Slemmer was killed. Prosecutors say Pike and two accomplices tortured, slashed and fatally beat her at the University of Tennessee. All were part of a Job Corps training program.

A pentagram was carved into Slemmer’s chest. Investigators say Pike bragged of keeping a skull fragment as a “souvenir.”

She was also convicted of attempted murder in 2001 after trying to strangle another prisoner with a shoestring.

The last Tennessee woman dying from the death penalty was Martin Eve in 1820 by hanging.

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