Tennessee’s prisons chief is resigning after failed execution of Christa Pike, governor says

Tennessee’s prisons chief is resigning after failed execution of Christa Pike, governor says

The head of Tennessee’s prison system is resigning, Gov. Bill Lee announced Saturday, the first major staff shake-up since Christa Pike’s stunning failed execution left her unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital.
Frank Strada, commissioner of the Department of Correction, will step down this month, Lee said. Some of the governor’s fellow Republicans and other elected officials had been urging a change in leadership.

It was the second time since May that Tennessee has not been able to execute a prisoner who was seemingly moments away from death.

The governor also announced that former US Attorney Ed Stanton would lead a review of what happened in Pike’s death chamber. Stanton previously was named to conduct a review after Lee called off a different execution in 2022; he found in that case that Tennessee had not complied with its own lethal injection process.

Strada said in a statement that resigning was “in the best interest of Tennesseans” while Stanton’s review is conducted. The state failed to execute Pike despite administering two doses of a lethal drug, pentobarbital