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Response to Motion Electronically RECEIVED on June 07, 2021 Electronically FILED on June 07, 2021 Appellate Court Clerk Appellate Court Clerk IN THE SUPREME COURT OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE STATE OF TENNESSEE, ) ) Movant, ) KNOX COUNTY v. ) No. M2020-01156-SC-DPE-DD ) CAPITAL CASE CHRISTA GAIL PIKE, ) ) Trial Court No. 58183A Defendant. ) DEFENDANT CHRISTA PIKE’S RESPONSE IN OPPOSITION TO THE STATE’S MOTION TO SET EXECUTION DATE AND REQUEST FOR A CERTIFICATE OF COMMUTATION Christa Gail Pike opposes the State’s motion to set an execution date and asks this Court for a Certificate of Commutation. Extenuating circumstances exist because Christa Pike was only eighteen at the time of this offense and suffering from severe mental illness along with organic brain damage. Her youth, her sexual victimization and traumatic upbringing, as well as her severe mental illness justify a commutation of the death sentence by this Court. Alternatively, Ms. Pike requests this Court deny the State’s motion because that motion is premature. Setting an execution date is premature because the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has reviewed Ms. Pike’s Petition requesting issuance of precautionary measures, determined that she is at serious and urgent risk of irreparable harm, and requested that the United 1 States refrain from carrying out the death penalty on Christa Pike until the IACHR can complete its investigation. Furthermore, setting an execution date at this time is also premature because TDOC safety measures in response to the COVID pandemic have precluded completing a current mental health evaluation. The State has just begun reopening and prisons have only recently begun allowing experts to conduct in-person evaluations. This Court should delay any ruling on the State’s motion until Ms. Pike has had the opportunity to fully research and investigate potential arguments for commutation that were stymied by the pandemic. Christa Gail Pike was a teenaged girl when the State of Tennessee sentenced her to death.1 If the Attorney General’s motion is granted, she will be the first woman Tennessee executes in over 200 years.2 She would also be the first person Tennessee has executed in the modern era who 1 There have been only 17 women executed by States or the federal government in the post-Furman era. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/death- row/women/executions-of-women. None were teenagers at the time of their offense; all were over the age of 21. See Exhibit 1 (Women Executed Post-Furman). 2 See https://www.acrosswalls.org/datasets/executions-us/ (database drawn primarily from Espy reflecting only four executions of women: 1) March 20, 1807, hanging of Molly Holcomb, a Black female; 2) 1808 hanging of an unnamed Black female; 3) 1819 hanging of an unnamed Black female, and 4) 1820 hanging of Eve Martin, race unknown for accessory to murder. However, the Espy database appears to have incorrectly included Eve Martin, who was the victim of a homicide, not an accessory. See David V. Baker, Women and Capital Punishment in the United States: An Analytical History, 132 (McFarland, 2015). 2 was a teenager at the time of the offense.3 Such death sentences for youthful offenders have now become exceedingly rare in this country in the years since her conviction and this Court’s last review of her sentence in 1998.4 Facts of the Case and Procedural History In January 1995, eighteen-year-old Christa Pike, seventeen-year- old Tadaryl Shipp, and nineteen-year-old Shadolla Peterson were charged in the Criminal Court for Knoxville County, Tennessee with the murder of nineteen-year-old Colleen Slemmer. (T XXIII: 2202.) All four teenagers were participating in Job Corps, a federal jobs training program for troubled adolescents. The three defendants invited Slemmer with them to a secluded area, where they killed her. Her throat was cut 3 Prior to resuming executions post-Furman, Tennessee’s last execution was in 1960. Tennessee executed thirteen men between 2000 and 2020, all of whom were in their 20’s or 30’s when committing their offenses. See Exhibit 2 (Tennessee Executions Post-Furman). 4 In 1996, when Christa Pike was tried, execution of those 16 years or older at the time of the offense was permitted. Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989). Since her sentencing and this Court’s last review of her case, standards of decency have evolved. C.f. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005). Notably, in this Court’s proportionality review of Ms. Pike’s sentence, the Court compared her case to eight others, and six of those defendants are no longer subject to execution. State v. Pike, 978 S.W.2d 904, 920–24 (Tenn. 1998). The seventh, Oscar Franklin Smith, awaits execution having been convicted of killing three people—his wife, and her 13 and 16-year-old sons. The eighth, Mr. Hall, was executed in 2019 after abandoning federal habeas proceedings. The 1998 Court was unaware of Ms. Pike’s severe mental illness (posttraumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder), congenital brain damage, childhood sexual victimization and rape, abandonment, and neglect because this evidence was never presented at trial. 3 multiple times, her head was struck with a large piece of asphalt, and a pentagram was carved into her chest. (T XVII: 1691–95; T XVIII: 1744– 47, 1777.) Christa confessed to her role in this crime. (T Exs. 28, 29). Even though the crime was highly sensationalized in the Knoxville media market,5 Christa went on trial in Knox County just over a year after she was charged. William Talman6 and Julie Martin Rice were appointed to represent her although neither had tried a death penalty case. Mr. Talman acknowledged that the most important part of Christa’s trial was the penalty phase,7 yet his presentation to persuade the jury to spare Christa’s life lasted only a couple of hours and the totality of the 5 See, e.g., T III: 334 (January 20, 1995 Knoxville News-Sentinel headlined “Alleged killers held ‘soul captive’”) describing “police sources” claiming that Ms. Pike and her codefendants took a skull fragment “to trap the victim’s soul in her body. .” The article refers to Satanist beliefs and devil worship, which were not motives in the offense, but nonetheless colored the media coverage and the prosecution’s presentation at trial. 6 At the time of his appointment, Talman was facing legal difficulties of his own. As the presiding judge later acknowledged, “we all knew Talman had his own problems.” (Supp. PC II: 114.) Around that time, Talman was under investigation by several law enforcement agencies for overbilling the state’s Indigent Defense Fund—a Class B felony. (See Apr. 2008 Ex. 1: Letter dated Dec. 8, 1994; Comptroller Report (CR): May 31, 1995 Letter.) The investigation, which attracted widespread local news coverage, revealed that Talman repeatedly billed over 24 hours per day and apparently manipulated time entries to avoid detection. (CR: 9; see Apr. 2008 Ex. 1: Collection of Knoxville News Sentinel articles.) Talman eventually pleaded guilty to two ethics charges, and the Tennessee Supreme Court imposed an approximately one-year suspended revocation of Talman’s license. (Feb. 2006 Ex. 2-A: Order of Enforcement.) 7 PC XX: 324. 4 defense testimony takes up less than sixty pages of transcript. As explained below, trial counsel failed to uncover compelling mitigating evidence that was never presented to the sentencing jury or considered by this Court. Trial counsel’s sentencing phase closing argument was also brief. Counsel did not tell the jury that Christa’s youth was a statutory mitigating factor, or that the jury might spare her life based on her lack of significant criminal record. Rather, counsel emphasized the prosecution argument that Christa enjoyed the attention this case brought.8 The defense proposed a life sentence as a more severe punishment, reasoning to the jury that Christa would receive less attention than if the jury imposed death. (T XXV: 2481.) Counsel was inexplicably arguing that the jury should inflict the harshest punishment. The jury responded by imposing the harshest punishment under the law and sentenced Christa to death.9 Had she been slightly younger at the time of the crime, like her codefendant Shipp, Christa Pike would have been ineligible for the death penalty. This Court affirmed her convictions and sentences on appeal. State v. Pike, 978 S.W.2d 904 (Tenn. 1998), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1147 (1999). 8 This argument was based on the defense assessment that Christa had Borderline Personality Disorder, a diagnosis reached after cursory testing and without any analysis of her traumatic childhood. Post- conviction experts and now, Dr. Bethany Brand, have raised serious questions about the validity of this diagnosis. 9 See https://www.wbir.com/video/news/local/march-30-1996-christa- pike-is-sentenced-to-death/51-bc611a44-2e79-4084-96a6-f1f11c9f9fc4 (50 second video from Knoxville television station reporting the verdict). 5 Next, she was denied post-conviction10 and federal habeas relief. Pike v. State, No. E2009–00016–CCA–R3–PD, 2011 WL 1544207 (Tenn. Crim. App. Apr. 25, 2011), perm. appeal denied (Nov.15, 2011). Pike v. Gross, 936 F.3d 372, 382–86 (6th Cir. 2019) (Stranch, J., concurring). While the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of habeas relief, Judge Stranch wrote a concurrence wherein she expressed the view that because Christa was 18 years old at the time of the crime the death sentence “likely” violates the Eighth Amendment under the Supreme Court’s “precedent focusing on the lesser blameworthiness and greater prospect for reform that is characteristic of youth.” Id. at 384 (citing Roper v.
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