Who Gets to Decide Who Should Die?
Christa Pike did something horrific.
There is no reason to soften that sentence.
In 1995, when Pike was 18 years old, she participated in the brutal torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville, Tennessee. Colleen was beaten and killed in an attack so vicious that the details have followed this case for more than thirty years.
Colleen was nineteen.
She had a mother.
She had a life that should have continued.
And nothing I am about to say changes what happened to her.
But watching the reaction to Christa Pike’s failed execution this week left me with a question I cannot shake:
When the fuck did we start cheering for death?
Because somewhere along the way, this stopped looking like justice and started looking disturbingly like entertainment.
Pike was scheduled to die by lethal injection in Tennessee on September 30. The execution went catastrophically wrong. She received pentobarbital and remained alive. The state administered another round.
She still didn’t die.
Witnesses reported seeing her move and hearing her continue to breathe long after the drugs were administered. Eventually the execution was stopped and Pike was transported to a hospital in critical condition. Tennessee’s governor subsequently halted another execution scheduled for this year and ordered an independent review. (AP News
The Tennessee Department of Correction says it followed every step of the state’s established execution protocol and that the protocol did not permit additional procedures beyond those already performed. (Tennessee Government
Think about that sentence for a second.
They followed the protocol.
And the person they were attempting to execute survived it.
Twice.
There are enormous questions about what happened inside that execution chamber, and Tennessee damn well better answer them.
But something else happened outside of it.
People cheered.
People were pissed that Pike survived.
People demanded they finish the job.
Another dose.
Try again.
Kill her.
And I found myself staring at these comments thinking:
What the fuck are we doing?
I understand anger.
I understand looking at what happened to Colleen Slemmer and feeling absolutely no sympathy for the woman convicted of killing her.
I understand believing in the death penalty.
What I don’t understand is the fucking bloodlust.
There is a difference between believing that execution is a justified punishment and enjoying watching another human being die.
And apparently we’ve forgotten that distinction.
We talk about ancient Rome as if we’re so much more civilized now.
We look back at the Colosseum and wonder how thousands of ordinary human beings could sit in an arena and cheer while another human being was killed in front of them.
How barbaric.
How primitive.
How could people possibly enjoy something like that?
Then an execution happens in America and we grab our phones.
We refresh the updates.
We argue about whether the drugs are working.
And when they don’t, some people start screaming for another round.
Maybe the arena changed.
Maybe we didn’t.
And Christa Pike is exactly the kind of person who forces us to confront that uncomfortable possibility.
Because humanity is easy when the person in front of you is sympathetic.
It’s easy to talk about mercy when someone made one terrible mistake.
It’s easy to oppose cruelty when the person receiving it seems undeserving.
Christa Pike isn’t an easy case.
What happened to Colleen was horrific. Pike was convicted and sentenced to death, and Colleen’s mother supported that sentence. She waited more than three decades to see it carried out. Instead, she watched an execution fail. Afterward, she said she still did not have justice for her daughter. (AP News
That matters.
Colleen matters.
She cannot become a footnote in a philosophical debate about the woman convicted of murdering her.
But neither should Colleen’s suffering become permission for the rest of us to turn another death into fucking entertainment.
Because then I get to the question I can’t answer.
Who gets to decide who should die?
Legally, we have an answer.
A jury imposes a sentence under laws written by elected legislators. Courts review it. Governors possess clemency powers. Corrections officials eventually carry out the sentence.
There is a process.
But morally?
That’s considerably harder.
Who among us gets to look at another human being and decide that whatever humanity exists inside them no longer matters?
And even if we believe the state should possess that authority in the most horrific cases, when exactly did that authority become ours to celebrate?
When did execution become a sporting event?
When did justice was carried out become hell yeah, kill her?
Those aren’t the same fucking thing.
I spent 27 years as a nurse.
Death isn’t abstract to me.
I’ve watched people die.
I’ve watched families sit beside beds knowing someone they love isn’t coming home.
There is nothing entertaining about the moment a human being stops breathing.
Nothing.
So maybe that’s why watching strangers practically salivate over another person’s execution hits me differently.
Death is permanent.
It doesn’t become less permanent because the person dying did something monstrous.
And recognizing that doesn’t mean excusing them.
Humanity is not absolution.
You can condemn what Christa Pike did.
You can grieve for Colleen Slemmer.
You can believe Pike deserved the sentence a jury gave her.
You can believe the death penalty itself is justified.
And you can still look at people cheering for another human being to die and think:
Jesus Christ.
What happened to us?
Justice should be solemn.
If society reaches the extraordinary conclusion that one of its members must be put to death, that should be one of the heaviest things a government ever does.
It should make us uncomfortable.
Maybe it should haunt us a little.
Because the day killing another human being becomes fun is the day we need to stop pretending this conversation is only about the condemned.
It’s about us too.
Colleen Slemmer deserved justice.
Her mother deserved better than sitting through the nightmare Tennessee created this week.
And whatever ultimately happens to Christa Pike, none of us should need to celebrate a human being taking her last breath.
The Romans had the Colosseum.
We have breaking-news banners, livestreams and comment sections.
Different arena.
Same uncomfortable question:
**Are we seeking justice—
or are we enjoying the spectacle?**