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The piece argues that capital punishment rests on primitive moral appeals while exposing unavoidable psychological torture and technological unreliability in execution methods. It places the case within UK historical restraint and the US reversal of progress, weighing grief for the victim against the broader inhumanity of state killing.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":45,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/religion-spirituality/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/independent-2-october-2026-news-editorial/498379/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/independent-2-october-2026-news-editorial/498379.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Indoniesian Boy","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-13","2026-10-02",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":39},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What happened in Christa Pike’s attempted execution?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Christa Pike survived an attempted execution after two doses of allegedly lethal pentobarbital failed, with witnesses describing breathing and snoring. Emergency services arrived after the state switched from trying to kill her to trying to keep her alive.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What does the editorial argue about the death penalty’s foundations?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The editorial claims the death-penalty case relies on primitive emotions rather than reason, while also emphasizing the risks of wrongful convictions and the sanctity of life.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does the article connect the Pike case to broader policy trends in the UK and US?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"It cites the UK’s suspension of capital punishment in 1965 and notes broader global movement away from state executions, while contrasting the US under Donald Trump as an exception with execution numbers rising again.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},498379,1791039483,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":44,"category_name":45,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":39,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},962090760608,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","| FRIDAY 2 OCTOBER 2026 WWW. INDEPENDENT. CO. UK |  |\n| --- | --- |\n| \u003Cbr>BRITISH-IRANIAN MAN ARRESTED OVER RAF FAIRFORD‘BOMB PLOT’ |  |\n| | Celebrity Traitors Sit back and enjoy the rideas most brilliant and bonkers show on TV returns |\n| |  |\n\nPrisoner survives double botched execution attempt  \nChrista Pike taken to hospital after attempt to kill her with two doses of lethal injection fails – 30 years after being jailed for killing teenager  \nMARYAM ZAKIR-HUSSAIN  \nA woman on death row in Tennessee is fighting for her life after surviving two supposedly lethal injections ina case that has shocked America. Christa Pike, 50, was  \nadministered the lethal injections after spending 30 years on death row, following the torture and murder of her 19-year-old classmate, Colleen Slemmer, when she was 18. In an “unparalleled” case, Pike was heard snoring and “very  \nragged” despite being injected with pentobarbital twice by officials at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Lawyers for Pike have now filed an emergency motion seeking to immediately halt and stay the execution.  \nFriday 2 October 2026  \nNews/Editorial   \nChrista Pike’s botched execution makes a powerful case against the  \ndeath penalty  \nhe argument for the death penalty has always relied on primitive emotions. An eye for an eye, a tooth fora tooth, a life for a life. The case against has tended to depend on an appeal to reason. The danger of a wrongful conviction. The sanctity of life and the possibility of redemption. The presumption against state killing except in a just war.  \nThe botched attempt to execute Christa Pike, however, adds some atavistic emotion to the case against capital punishment.  \nThe horror of media witnesses hearing breathing and snoring after the administration of two doses of supposedly lethal  \npentobarbital speaks for itself.  \nJournalists were asked to leave the room and 15 minutes later the emergency services arrived, as the state switched from trying to kill the convict to trying to keep her alive.  \nNothing can diminish Pike’s crime – she tortured and killed a fellow student in a jealous rage 31 years ago – but the inhumanity of her treatment over the years should give any advocate of the death penalty pause for thought.  \nShe was sentenced to death in 1996 and, since then, legal arguments have gone back and forth. As Victoria Richards writes today, Pike’s “very existence since has been treated like a ‘Will they, won’t they?’ plotline; a Hunger Games-style gladiatorial fight”. Those arguments continued in the hours before her attempted execution, with a late stay of execution granted and then overturned.  \nThe psychological torture of these legal twists and turns, and the practical difficulties of killing a person in a “humane” manner, are not incidental to the death penalty; they are an inevitable part of it.  \nThe technology of justice has often been its weakest point. The guillotine became the favoured method of execution in the French Revolution because of the unreliability of hanging. Ironically, it was named after Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who opposed the death penalty but advocated the device as a more humane method of killing.  \nYou do not have to be a radical anti-statist to believe that governments that struggle to manage procurement and cost control cannot be trusted with the right to kill their own citizens.  \nWe should be grateful, in the United Kingdom, for the wisdom of our parliamentary representatives who “suspended” the death penalty in 1965. Since then, a majority of the British people has continued to tell opinion pollsters that capital punishment should be brought back – at least for some categories of murder – but there has been no real push to do so.  \nThe issue in this country was, in effect, closed by Margaret Thatcher, who said that she personally supported the death penalty but did not seek to do anything about it.  \nNone of this is to take away from the grief and misery of the family of Pike’s victim, Co","cbCaivKsEWBG2vvh","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaivKsEWBG2vvh","pdf",3008026,121,"English","# News/Editorial\n## Christa Pike botched execution and arguments against the death penalty\n# News\n## Early release scheme could put abuse survivors at risk","[{\"question\":\"What happened in Christa Pike’s attempted execution?\",\"answer\":\"Christa Pike survived an attempted execution after two doses of allegedly lethal pentobarbital failed, with witnesses describing breathing and snoring. Emergency services arrived after the state switched from trying to kill her to trying to keep her alive.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the editorial argue about the death penalty’s foundations?\",\"answer\":\"The editorial claims the death-penalty case relies on primitive emotions rather than reason, while also emphasizing the risks of wrongful convictions and the sanctity of life.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article connect the Pike case to broader policy trends in the UK and US?\",\"answer\":\"It cites the UK’s suspension of capital punishment in 1965 and notes broader global movement away from state executions, while contrasting the US under Donald Trump as an exception with execution numbers rising again.\"}]","Independent 2 October 2026 - News Editorial | PDF",1790980616,305]