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Christa Pike out of hospital and back in prison after botched execution attempt
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2026
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If at any point she died and was brought back I foresee an interesting legal argument to her being set free.
I've heard this is why death sentences state "hanged by the neck until dead." Someone survived a hanging at one point and successfully argued that their sentence had been carried out, so they could not be hanged again. I read about it years ago, I don't remember details. All this is to say she might not be able to make that point. Either way, you're right. It's gonna be interesting.
But can you legally die and then be revived? Like say someone's heart stopped for 30 seconds and then they came back to?
The intersection of philosophy and law is always an interesting place to be.
IMHO (not a philosopher or a lawyer), law is a branch of applied moral philosophy.
If I remember correctly a guy tried to argue this in court a couple years ago after having a heart attack in jail and the judge ruled that since he was in court arguing his case he was still alive and the life sentence was still in effect.
Should have argued something about reincarnation and since he died it was now someone else.
Not really. Despite the tails you hear about people saying they were dead and came back after seeing heaven, and saying stuff like they had a heart attack and died three times on the way to the hospital, those aren’t dead. Do you think any of those cases would be willing to send all their stuff off to whoever is inheriting it? The laws know this and the sentence is not going away on a gotcha. Otherwise people with life sentences or on death row would be trying to give themselves survivable heart attacks all the time. Not a fan of the justice system or the death penalty in general, but this lady is there for a good reason. It may functionally turn into a life sentence but they sure aren’t letting her go free.
The intent of the death penalty is clear. I don't think we're gonna see any of this tv show type court stuff.
Judges usually don't like tricks like trying to argue a definition of death in which the person is alive afterward. It wouldn't be accepted in the other direction either; an assailant whose victim is alive is not guilty of murder.
There are certainly legal arguments against trying to execute her again, but if one succeeds, the outcome will be life in prison, not release.
I read that at some point in hospital she was declared brain dead, which surprised me, because normally that's not a temporary condition, but in the BBC article they just say "Her legal team believed for days that she was brain dead and expected her to be taken off life support at any moment.", which is not the same thing.
So, if a murderer survives we just let them go? That's fucking stupid