The Sixth Circuit temporarily stayed Christa Pike's Sept. 30 execution about an hour before it was set to begin. A stay is not a new verdict.

A temporary stay from a federal appeals court is appellate process. It is not a new trial verdict, and it is not an execution carried out. On Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, about an hour before the 10 a.m. Central time, the Sixth Circuit paused Pike's scheduled lethal injection so the court could further review defense arguments tied to childhood trauma and abuse and how that filing should be treated procedurally. WSMV and WVLT reported that Tennessee has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to lift the stay. That request was still unanswered in the reporting available Wednesday morning. The death sentence remains unless a court grants further relief.

Pike remains convicted in the 1996 Knoxville Job Corps case for the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer, and she remains the only woman on Tennessee's death row. Prior CTN coverage noted Gov. Bill Lee's clemency denial and the U.S. Supreme Court's earlier denial of Pike's own stay application. Those earlier decisions are separate from Wednesday's Sixth Circuit order.

WSMV reported that Judges Moore and Stranch granted the temporary stay for further review, and that Judge Griffin dissented, writing that the pause repeats a previous appeal that federal law forbids. The same reporting said the State has asked the Supreme Court to overrule the stay and that the Court had not yet responded. A pending request to lift a stay is not a ruling that the stay has been lifted, and a stay is not a finding that the execution was carried out.