Christa Pike

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I'm sure by now many people have heard of the Christa Pike story. She survived her execution. She was supposed to be executed by lethal injection; only she survived it and was rushed to the hospital, where she was put on a ventilator. It was originally stated that she might not recover from it, but she did. She has made a lot of progress medically. There is talk about where she sits mentally. I'm very conflicted about this entire situation. Part of me is like, well, I mean, she was literally on death row for murder. She tortured and murdered a 19-year-old woman when she was only 18. By US law, we can not subject someone to cruel and unusual punishment, which is my only guess as to why they may have gotten her medical treatment. It's all a bit confusing to me as to why we would save someone who was meant to die in the first place. I don't fully understand the situation, but it is an unprecedented situation. The woman was young when she did something unbelievably horrible. She was only 18, and at that age your brain isn't fully developed, not that that is necessarily an excuse. Tons of 18-year-olds make it through that point in their lives without committing murder. From my understanding, she also had a terrible home life, but once again that is once again not an excuse. The way people grow up does fundamentally alter the way their brain works. Children who suffer abuse often end up being abusers themselves. It's one of those scenarios where I'm sitting here confused and conflicted as to how I should feel. On one hand, I see a woman who was young and did something unthinkable, and I think the family of the young girl who was killed deserves justice, and I see this as kind of a slap in the face to them. They were prepared to finally see justice, and here the woman who did it managed to survive. From the things I have read, Christa has apologized and does genuinely feel terrible for what she did, but the family doesn't feel it is genuine. No one but Christa can fully know whether it's genuine or not. I believe people can do terrible things and change, but I also believe the people who had those terrible things done to them have the right to not accept that a person has changed, because why would they? They are suffering the loss of a loved one at this woman's hands; I can't blame them for being angry and hurt that this didn't go the way they wanted. I also believe it's possible Christa isn't the monster she is made out to be despite what she did, because I do believe people can and do change, especially if they were a lot younger when they did it. I don't know if that's the case with Christa. I just know I'm still partially baffled as to why we would save someone from dying when that is what they were meant to do in the first place. I have to believe it has something to do with cruel and unusual punishment; otherwise, it seems pretty pointless. I just know that the death penalty is already pretty controversial. I have always been conflicted where that was concerned too. I believe the truly terrible people do deserve to die, but the issue is we have also put innocent people to death. The justice system is flawed. Without video and DNA evidence, it's difficult to say who is or isn't innocent. There have been rulings I have completely disagreed with. There have been people I swore were guilty who got to walk away, and then there were people everyone swore were guilty who were actually innocent and spent years behind bars or, in some cases, were executed. There are young kids who go into prison as little thugs that the full significance of their actions doesn't hit them until they've been in there a while, because they had to grow up. There are kids who get themselves in too deep and fall into the wrong crowds. There are so many circumstances behind why people do the things that they do that make me feel conflicted about the death penalty as a whole, but then there are those cases where people seem to be complete monsters that I feel like the death penalty is warranted. I just know I never want to be the person who decides whether someone lives or dies. This case with Christa made me think a lot about what I feel about the whole situation, and I'm still not sure how to feel about it. I find it odd to save someone who was legally meant to die, but I also see it in legal terms too, assuming that's why they saved her.