The Davidson County Chancery Court in Nashville ordered Tennessee prison officials to preserve all evidence in connection with last week’s botched lethal injection of Christa Pike, including log books, medical waste and all messages sent or received by officials associated with the execution attempt.

“Anything in the actual room needs to be preserved and maintained,” Judge I’Ashea Myles said.

The judge also granted a request from Pike’s attorneys for “liberal access” to their client, ordering that prison officials will have two hours to respond to requests from lawyers for in-person visits with Pike.

Speaking outside the courtroom, Luke P. Ihnen, an assistant federal defender in Knoxville, told reporters that this was “just a first step of many to preserve and enforce Christa’s constitutional rights after this unprecedented botched execution.”

The hearing came a week after Pike was left hospitalized and in critical condition following the Sept. 30 execution attempt in which she was strapped to a gurney and administered two doses of pentobarbital, a barbiturate widely used in U.S. executions. But several minutes after the first dose, she said her arm was burning and asked whether it was supposed to feel that way. She then said, “Please try up on my shoulder higher.”

Pike’s attorneys said that after days of unconsciousness, Pike was awake again, speaking and continuing to receive critical medical care.

Randy Spivey, a post-conviction attorney representing Pike, called his client “a survivor.”

“She survived sexual abuse [and] the rapes of multiple men. She survived a suicide attempt when she was 12 and she survived the state’s attempt to execute her,” he said. “She deserves answers about what was done to her and the people of Tennessee deserve those answers, too.”

He said of the botched execution, “all of this was foreseen,” because Pike has a medical condition that would make it difficult to insert an IV to deliver the lethal doses of pentobarbital.

Luke Ihnen, attorney for Christa Pike, speaks during a news conference after a judge ruled the Tennessee Department of Corrections must preserve all evidence related to the failed execution of Pike, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn.

George Walker IV/AP

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George Walker IV/AP

Spivey, who was a witness to last week’s failed execution, told NPR that after a second dose, Pike fell unconscious but continued breathing and making sounds like choking. It “went on for so long,” he said.