Tennessee inmate surviving 2 lethal injections shows why to abolish death penalty: UN human rights

 The UN human rights office on Thursday cited the case of Tennessee inmate Christa Pike as a reason to abolish the death penalty after Pike survived two attempts to administer lethal injection drugs.

The case "lays bare multiple reasons why the death penalty should be abolished," the office said in a post on the US social media company X.

"The prolonged suffering – physical and mental – arising from multiple failed execution attempts is abhorrent and cruel," it stressed, adding that there are "key fair trial questions" still unresolved.

In the post, the office said UN human rights chief Volker Turk had called on state authorities not to pursue further attempts to execute the inmate, who was convicted and sentenced to capital punishment in 1996 for the 1995 slaying of Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.

"We are also troubled by the increase in the number of executions in the United States," the office said. "The death penalty has no place in any society."

Pike, the only woman on Tennessee's death row, remained alive after two syringes of lethal injection drugs were administered to her late Wednesday, her lawyers said in a federal court filing seeking to halt the execution, NBC News reported.