US appeals court halts Tennessee execution of Christa Pike

A federal appeals court has temporarily stopped Tennessee from executing death row inmate Christa Pike , intervening less than two hours before she was due to receive a lethal injection. The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals granted what it called a “short stay of execution” on Wednesday while judges consider Pike’s argument that evidence of sexual abuse she experienced as a child was not properly weighed when she was sentenced. Tennessee officials quickly turned to the US Supreme Court, asking the justices to lift the stay and allow the execution to proceed. Pike, 50, had been scheduled to die at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.