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The head of Tennessee’s prison system is resigning, Gov. Bill Lee announced Saturday, the first major staff shake-up since Christa Pike’s stunning failed execution<\/a> left her unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital.<\/p>\n Frank Strada, commissioner of the Department of Correction, will step down this month, Lee said. Some of the governor’s fellow Republicans and other elected officials had been urging a change in leadership.<\/p>\n It was the second time<\/a> since May that Tennessee has not been able to execute a prisoner who was seemingly moments away from death. <\/p>\n The governor also announced that former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton would lead a review of what happened in Pike’s death chamber. Stanton previously was named to conduct a review after Lee called off a different execution in 2022; he found in that case that Tennessee had not complied with its own lethal injection process. <\/p>\n Strada said in a statement that resigning was \u201cin the best interest of Tennesseans\u201d while Stanton’s review is conducted. The state failed to execute Pike despite administering two doses of a lethal drug, pentobarbital. <\/p>\n Pike, now 50, was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed<\/a> a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in a jealous rage in 1995. She became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row. <\/p>\n There was no immediate response from Pike’s lawyers for an update Saturday on her condition at a hospital. They had disclosed Friday<\/a> that she was on a ventilator and unconscious in the hours following the execution attempt and that hospital staff were trying to clear the two doses of pentobarbital<\/a>.<\/p>\n The shocking failure<\/a> has left both sides of the death penalty debate demanding answers. Lee has ordered an independent review and halted any new executions. Strada said he believes the state \u201ccarried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol.\u201d<\/p>\n Pike’s legal team welcomed Strada’s departure but said \u201cit does nothing to help Christa now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened to her Wednesday reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one person,\u201d the four-lawyer team said. \u201cWe hope the governor\u2019s call for a full, independent review will expose the profound problems within Tennessee\u2019s entire death penalty system.\u201d<\/p>\n Pike\u2019s attorneys said they believed problems with the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to flow into her body instead of her bloodstream.<\/p>\n Pike was extraordinarily cooperative with the execution team, even instructing them to \u201cplease try here, please try here\u201d as they tried to insert lines, lawyer Randy Spivey told reporters Thursday.<\/p>\n In May, Tennessee stopped the execution of Tony Carruthers<\/a> after staff placed an IV into his right arm but couldn\u2019t get a secondary IV line. The governor ordered officials to wait at least a year before trying to execute him again.<\/p>\n Strada took over the Correction Department in January 2023 after serving as deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections. In late 2024, he announced that Tennessee was changing its lethal injection protocol and would use only pentobarbital.<\/p>\n Four people have been executed in Tennessee since 2025, according to the Correction Department<\/a>.<\/p>\n Court filings show that Strada’s job included overseeing executions in Arizona when they resumed in 2022 following an eight-year break.<\/p>\n Clarence Dixon was the first that year<\/a>. The medical team had trouble finding a vein to administer the lethal drugs and finally made an incision in his groin area. The process took about 25 minutes.<\/p>\n That same year in Arizona, medical staff preparing Frank Atwood for execution<\/a> initially could not locate a vein in his right arm but inserted the IV in his right hand \u2014 at Atwood\u2019s suggestion, said Henry Brean, an Arizona Daily Star reporter who was a witness.<\/p>\n