Christa Pike survived her execution attempt. Tennessee must not try again | Austin Sarat

What happened to Pike was gruesome. No one deserves what she went through, not even those who commit horrible crimesBotched executions are nothing new in US history. In the era when hangings were common, some condemned people were decapitated. Later, when the electric chair was in vogue, every now and again, someone would catch fire during an electrocution. And nitrogen hypoxia, the US’s newest execution method, has already proven notoriously unreliable.But, of all of the ways we have tried to e