Tennessee governor declines to halt execution of state's lone woman on death row

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has refused to grant clemency to Christa Pike, a 50-year-old death row inmate scheduled for execution by lethal injection on Wednesday for a 1995 murder she committed at age 18. Pike and her teenage boyfriend brutally killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer at a job training camp, and Pike was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death while her boyfriend received life with parole. Her attorneys argue that executing someone for a crime committed as a teenager violates modern scientific understanding of brain development and that Pike's severe childhood trauma and mental illness should be considered, though they have filed a last-minute petition with the Supreme Court.