TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Paul Burch on Aug 31, 2023

Attorneys for death row inmate Christa Pike filed a motion in Knox County yesterday to reopen her petition for post-conviction relief, citing a recent court opinion that her youth should have served as a factor in sentencing, the Tennessean reports. Pike, now 47, was sentenced to death in 1996 for torturing and killing fellow Knoxville Job Corps member Colleen Slemmer. Pike is the last person in Tennessee to receive a death sentence for a crime committed as an 18-year-old and has been the only woman on Tennessee's death row since 2010. A U.S. district judge upheld the conviction in 2012 ruling there were not “valid grounds” for an appeal to proceed. Pike was also convicted in 2004 for attempting to strangle a fellow inmate.