Tennessee Prison Commissioner Resigns After Failed Christa Pike Execution

Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada resigned Saturday, after the failed execution of Christa Pike. Credit: Martin B. Cherry / Nashville Banner

Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada has resigned as head of the state’s prison system following this week’s failed execution of Christa Pike. It was the second time this year that a scheduled execution had gone disastrously wrong at Nashville’s Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.

Gov. Bill Lee announced the “leadership transition” Saturday morning, thanking Strada for his “willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment.” The governor added that he would “pray God’s blessings over him in the days ahead.”

In his own statement released by the governor’s office, Strada said “stepping aside is in the best interest of Tennesseans as the independent review moves forward.” He said the review of execution protocols announced by Lee earlier this week is “entirely appropriate and necessary.”

Pike, who was sentenced to death in 1996 for her part in the torture and murder of Colleen Slemmer when both were still teenagers, was rushed to a Nashville hospital Wednesday night after surviving two rounds of lethal injection. Her attorneys said in a court filing Friday that she was unconscious and on a ventilator. That followed May’s aborted execution of Tony Carruthers, which was called off after the execution team failed to successfully establish IV lines despite jabbing Carruthers repeatedly in various parts of his body.

Lee’s announcement earlier this week also marks the second time as governor he has called for a moratorium on executions and an independent review of the state’s lethal injection protocol. The state adopted its current protocol in 2025, shifting to a one-drug process using pentobarbital.

Strada was recruited and appointed commissioner of TDOC by Lee in 2023. He came to Tennessee from the Arizona Department of Corrections, where he was deputy director. The New York Times reported Friday that Strada had overseen three “problem-plagued executions” during his tenure in Arizona.

Source: nashvillebanner.com, Steven Hale, October 3, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde

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