KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The only woman on Tennessee's death row is asking the court to reconsider her death sentence.
Christa Pike was convicted in 1996 after she and two other people were convicted of torturing and killing 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Pike's attorneys have tried on three separate occasions on both state and federal levels to get off of death row. Those attempts all failed. But that's not stopping her and her legal team from giving it another try.
"They're not caring about the victim at all, and they really need to. Because this is really hard on a family. I went through hell, and it's not right. Colleen was tortured and she felt every second of pain," said May Martinez, the mother of Colleen Slemmer. "She doesn't have any appeals left, I don't understand how this has come up. She was sentenced to death and it's been 28 years."
The request asks the state to re-evaluate how Pike was sentenced. Her lawyers claim her age and mental health weren't taken into account at the original sentencing. Pike was 18 years old at the time of the killing, her lawyers say her brain wasn't fully developed.
It was also filed in lieu of a new Tennessee Supreme Court ruling that juveniles are "constitutionally different than adults" when it comes to sentencing them for crimes.
"If a person's mental capacity is so limited as to be defined as intellectually disabled, it is considered cruel and unusual punishment for the state to seek the death penalty," said Chloe Akers, a criminal defense attorney who is familiar with those sentencing laws.
She represented Tyshon Booker in a case that eventually went to the state Supreme Court. In that case, the court ruled juveniles are constitutionally different than adults for sentencing purposes.
Akers says because Pike was 18 years old at the time of the crime, the request could be more difficult for her.
"The day someone turns 18, they become the subject matter of the jurisdiction of adult criminal court in this country," said Akers.