Tennessee Prison Chief Resigns After Botched Execution of Christa Pike
NASHVILLE — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced Saturday that Frank Strada, commissioner of the state Department of Correction, has resigned and will step down this month — the first major leadership shake-up since the state's botched execution attempt of Christa Pike left her unconscious and on a ventilator.
Strada's departure comes three days after Pike, 50, survived two rounds of the lethal drug pentobarbital on Sept. 30 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. She was Tennessee's first female death row inmate in more than 200 years, condemned for the 1995 torture and killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer when Pike was 18.
In a statement, Lee said he had accepted Strada's decision and praised his service. "Commissioner Strada has served with integrity, and I appreciate his willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment," the governor said. "I am grateful for his commitment to ensuring a smooth leadership transition."
The governor's office said an interim commissioner will be announced later.
Strada, who has led the department since 2023, called the job "a great honor" and maintained that he continues to "believe the Department carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol." Even so, he said, "stepping aside is in the best interest of Tennesseans as the independent review moves forward. I believe this review is entirely appropriate and necessary, and I look forward to doing everything I can to help determine exactly what occurred."
Pressure for a change had been mounting. Some of Lee's fellow Republicans and other elected officials had urged new leadership, and reporting by The Tennessean renewed scrutiny of Strada's record in Arizona, where he served as a top corrections official during three lethal injection executions that were later criticized for serious problems. Arizona overhauled its protocols after Strada departed in 2023.
Court filings from Pike's lawyers paint a harrowing picture of the Sept. 30 attempt: execution staff used at least seven needles trying to find a vein, and Pike was heard crying, whimpering and breathing loudly. In a Friday filing, her attorneys said she was unconscious, intubated and on a mechanical ventilator at a Nashville-area hospital, and accused prison officials of ignoring prior warnings from her doctors that her small veins and a blood disorder called thrombocytosis would make IV placement especially difficult. Doctors were working to save her life and clear the pentobarbital from her system.
Pike's four-person legal team welcomed Strada's resignation but said it was not enough. "What happened to her Wednesday reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one person," they said in a statement obtained by the Associated Press. "We hope the governor's call for a full, independent review will expose the profound problems within Tennessee's entire death penalty system."
Lee moved quickly after Pike survived. On Wednesday night he ordered a full independent review of what went wrong and halted executions for the rest of 2026. He named former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton to lead the review — the same Stanton who investigated after Lee called off a different execution in 2022 and concluded that Tennessee had not complied with its own lethal injection process. The new review will determine whether the protocol was followed and whether further changes are needed to keep it lawful and effective.
It was the second failed execution attempt in Tennessee this year — the second time since May that the state could not execute a prisoner who appeared moments away from death. Until the independent review is complete, the state's death penalty machinery stays frozen.