US court halts first execution of woman in Tennessee in 200 years

 

A US federal court has stayed the execution of 50-year-old Christa Pike, who could become the first woman put to death in Tennessee in more than 200 years, The New York Times reported.

The order was issued Wednesday, only hours before the execution was scheduled to be carried out at a maximum-security prison in Nashville. The ruling followed an active campaign by her lawyers, who argued that Pike’s childhood sexual abuse had not been taken into account during the proceedings in her case.

A day earlier, the Tennessee Supreme Court declined to intervene in the death sentence, while Governor Bill Lee rejected Pike’s request to have her sentence commuted to life imprisonment.