In Nashville, Christa Pike Has Now Moved To Be Executed By... Firing Squad. Obviously, To Vividly-Demonstrate The Depravity -- Of The Whole Process.

The Supremes stepped out of the way yesterday, as Tennessee seeks to execute its first female in over 200 years. Also yesterday, she asked to be executed -- by firing squad. The reasoning there is old, and obvious: this whole exercise is beneath a civilized society. [It is another of many attempts to make her execution stand for more than simple vengeance.]

Two hours before she was to be killed, this morning a federal appeals court issued a stay, to consider whether enough weight was given in her habeas proceedings to her allegations of severe sexual abuse when she was a child -- as a factor mitigating her culpability. Pike spent three decades now, on death row after being convicted of the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer. Pike was just 18 years old at the time of the crime:

. . .She states that [Tennessee] recently reversed its litigation position that she is a liar who fabricated sexual abuse. Pike contends that the State’s concession of her history of child sexual abuse and rape “erodes the foundation” of her state court proceedings. Pike ties this erosion to defects in the federal court proceedings because, under AEDPA, the district court was required to give strong deference to the state court’s findings of facts. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). Pike also cites scholarly authority supporting her argument that the State’s representations about her history of sexual abuse tainted the state court proceedings and the subsequent federal ones by introducing damaging stereotypes of survivors of sexual assault. Pike contends that her motion is an attack on the integrity of her habeas proceedings, and, thus, properly considered a Rule 60(b)(6) motion. See Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524, 532 (2005). . . .

To adequately address and resolve the issues now presented to this court and in carefully balancing the equities, we find that a stay of Pike’s execution is necessary. “[A] stay of execution is an equitable remedy,” Hill v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 573, 584 (2006), one which we have exercised to stay executions in the past, see Hartman v. Bobby, 319 F. App’x 370, 371 (6th Cir. 2009). The interests of justice and the finality of Pike’s impending execution compel theentry of a short stay of execution in order to properly analyze the parties’ fully briefed arguments and resolve the issues on the merits. . . .

Regular readers well-know that I believe in all instances the sentence of death cannot be shown to be uniformly, or equitably imposed. It is a vestige of our darker ages. What indeed will this all achieve? The victims cannot be revived by any of it. Out.

नमस्ते