“The death penalty should be abolished.”

The debate has new urgency after Tennessee's botched execution of Christa Pike, who continued breathing for nearly 40 minutes after lethal drugs were administered — the first person in modern U.S. history to survive a lethal injection attempt. Gov. Bill Lee has since paused all executions in the state through the rest of 2026 and ordered a third-party review, while advocacy groups are using the case to push for abolition outright rather than just fixing the method. The case puts a concrete, recent face on a debate that's otherwise often abstract.

May Martinez (mother of Pike's victim, against abolition): said the botched execution still didn't deliver the justice she was owed — "I didn't get justice for my daughter" — and that "the state owes me a big apology," reflecting the view that the death penalty serves a real purpose for victims' families that commutation or abolition would take away. Justin Mazzola (Amnesty International, deputy director of research, for abolition): called Tennessee's attempted execution "an extreme display of cruelty and the latest reminder that the death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment," arguing the system itself — not just this one failure — is the problem. Gov. Bill Lee (Tennessee governor, middle ground — reform, not abolition): called the botched execution "deeply disturbing" and said he was "highly disappointed," but framed it as a problem with execution procedure rather than a reason to end capital punishment, saying the state has a duty to carry out "a lawfully imposed sentence" in a way that is "effective."