Tennessee has halted all executions scheduled for the remainder of 2026 after death-row inmate Christa Pike survived an unsuccessful lethal-injection attempt hours after a court battle over whether she should be put to death.

Pike, 50, was due to be executed on Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a killing committed when Pike was 18. She would have become the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than 200 years.

The execution was initially stopped by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit about an hour before the scheduled procedure. The U.S. Supreme Court later overturned that stay, clearing the way for Tennessee officials to proceed.

Officials subsequently administered two doses of pentobarbital, but Pike remained alive. Her attorneys said she was still breathing after the second dose and was later taken by ambulance to a hospital. Her condition was not immediately disclosed.

Pike’s lawyers had argued before the execution that her history of severe childhood abuse, trauma and mental-health problems had not been adequately considered when she was sentenced to death. Governor Bill Lee had rejected her clemency request two days before the scheduled execution.

Following the failed execution, Lee ordered an independent review and halted Tennessee’s remaining executions for 2026. The development has also triggered fresh legal proceedings over what happened during the execution attempt and whether the state can seek another execution date for Pike.