Our Evil Tinkerbell

It would be hard to argue that at points in her life Christa Pike was not bad beyond redemption, as when she participated in the murder of another young woman also in her late teens, and when she and a fellow inmate tried to kill another offender imprisoned with them. That being said, I do not think the moral compass of my home state should be guided by vengeance alone, but also must be tempered with mercy. I think Governor Lee, if he has any decency at all, should now commute Pike's sentence to spare her any future second attempt at execution. If she survives the effects of the two lethal doses she was administered (that in my mind became cruel and unusual punishment), she should be left to live out the course of her natural life without fear of further torture. Pike, if she lives through this at all, will likely face profound and lifelong damage and disability from what was already done to her, with cognitive and motor impairment almost certain. She has been made to suffer too much already, and our term-limited Governor must take this into account and not keep a sword of Damocles over her head, if she somehow emerges alive from hospitalization and rehabilitation from the State's clumsy attempt at killing her.