/ / USA: WOMAN FACING EXECUTION FOR CRIME AT AGE 18

USA: WOMAN FACING EXECUTION FOR CRIME AT AGE 18

UA: 83.26

Only 40 days left to join us and support this case!

Christa Pike, aged 50, is scheduled to be executed in Tennessee, USA, on September 30, 2026. She was convicted in 1996 of a 1995 murder committed when she was 18, barely out of a childhood in which she endured rape, sexual and physical violence, abuse, and neglect. The state failed to protect her as a child despite having knowledge of what she was facing. Her court-appointed lawyers then failed her at her trial, presenting little of the mitigating evidence of this abuse or its psychological consequences.

Call on Governor Bill Lee to stop this execution and grant clemency.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE UNTIL: September 30, 2026

Here is how you can take action:

Send a letter to Tennessee Governor Bill Lee
Send an email to Tennessee Governor Bill Lee using the web contact form in Step 2
Post on social media

Scroll down to Step 1 and Step 2 to access the full Urgent Action appeal and sample letter, and U.S.P.S. mailing address (if available).

Take action

Step 1

READ THE FULL URGENT ACTION

Enter your email address and zip code to get the sample letter to send to government officials.

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You can now write a letter in your own words or download the sample below as a guide.

Remember to send your letter by September 30, 2026.

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Sample Letter

Dear Governor,

Please stop the September 30, 2026 execution of Christa Pike. I do not seek to downplay the seriousness of the crime of which she was convicted. However, I urge you to consider the appalling treatment that marked her childhood – a childhood she was barely out of when the murder occurred – and to consider whether the jurors were presented with a full and cohesive narrative of her short life until that point to inform their life-or-death decision-making. I submit to you that they were not.

On the eve of the 1996 trial’s sentencing phase, the inexperienced court-appointed lawyers abandoned their plan to present as their sole mitigation witness the psychologist who had produced a three-volume history of their young client. They had no back-up plan and did not seek more time to make one. They had not pursued any other witnesses and decided to put the defendant’s parents and an aunt on the stand. At a post-conviction hearing, the lead lawyer conceded that he should have called many of the individuals interviewed by the psychologist.

In 2001, a psychiatrist/neurologist retained by the appeal lawyers for post-conviction proceedings concluded that Christa Pike met the criteria for bipolar disorder, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and had frontal lobe brain damage from birth. Another expert described Christa Pike as being “the product of an almost unbearably abusive background”. In 2023, a psychologist with 30 years of experience in trauma-related disorders concluded that the abuse and neglect endured by Christa Pike as a child was “truly extreme” and its severity was “almost impossible to grasp”.

The state failed to provide Christa Pike the protection she needed as a child despite multiple state actors having knowledge about what she was facing. Please do not perpetuate this failure and the failure of the trial lawyers by allowing this execution to proceed.

I appeal to you to grant clemency and to commute this death sentence.

Sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]

Step 2

Send your message

Mail your letter to the government officials listed below. You can also email, fax, call, or post about them on social media.

Send your letter to:

Governor Bill Lee

1st Floor, State Capitol

600 Dr Martin L. King, Jr. Blvd.

Nashville, TN 37243, USA

Webmail: https://www.tn.gov/governor/contact-us/share-opinion.html

When writing your letter, don’t forget to be factual, brief, and show respect. See more letter writing tips and emails, or organize and host a letter writing party.

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