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The U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Sixth Circuit's temporary stay of Christa Pike's execution. Vacating a stay is appellate process, not an execution carried out.
On Wednesday evening, Sept. 30, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a temporary stay the Sixth Circuit had entered that morning of Christa Gail Pike's lethal-injection execution. Justice Brett Kavanaugh granted Tennessee's application. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissented. Reporting said the State's execution warrant was set to expire at midnight and that it was not clear whether Tennessee would proceed that night.
By Crime Talk Network Staff Writer ·
An order vacating a stay is appellate process. It clears a path for the State to proceed, but it is not itself an execution, and it is not a new guilt finding. On Wednesday evening, Sept. 30, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Sixth Circuit's morning stay of Christa Gail Pike's scheduled lethal injection. BBC News, Fox News, and The Hill reported Justice Brett Kavanaugh granted Tennessee's application, with Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissenting. Prior CTN coverage recorded the Sixth Circuit stay itself and earlier stay and clemency denials. Those earlier files are separate from Wednesday night's Supreme Court order. Reporting said the warrant was set to expire at midnight and that it was not immediately clear whether the execution would be carried out that night. The order is not proof that the sentence was carried out.
Pike remains convicted for the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer, 19, at a Knoxville Job Corps site and remains under a death sentence entered after her 1996 trial. She was 18 at the time of the killing. She remains the only woman on Tennessee's death row. A conviction and sentence already entered are the starting point for the appellate stay fight. They are not re-litigated by an order vacating a stay.
Earlier Wednesday, the Sixth Circuit, in a 2-1 order from Judges Karen Moore and Jane Stranch, temporarily stayed the 10 a.m. Central lethal injection so the court could further review a defense filing about childhood sexual abuse and how that filing should be treated procedurally. Judge Richard Griffin dissented. Tennessee asked the Supreme Court to vacate that stay. Wednesday evening's Supreme Court order is the answer to that request. It is not a ruling that the Sixth Circuit stay never issued, and it is not a finding that the execution was carried out.
BBC News reported the Supreme Court order landed just before 6 p.m. local time, hours before the State's execution order was set to expire at midnight, and, citing the Associated Press, that if time ran out the Tennessee Supreme Court would need to set a new date. Fox News and The Hill reported the same vacatur and the same dissent lineup. Those accounts describe timing and process. They are not confirmation that lethal injection occurred on Sept. 30.
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