A prison official who oversaw three botched executions in Arizona resigned his post in Tennessee last week after the failed execution of inmate Christa Pike.
Pike survived after being administered two lethal doses of pentobarbital. She was set to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years.
The execution was overseen by Correction Commissioner Frank Strada, who supervised another botched execution in Tennessee earlier this year. Strada served as deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry until 2023\.
In 2022, Strada oversaw three botched executions in Arizona in which prison officials failed to locate inmates’ veins to administer the lethal injection.
In the first, executioners eventually resorted to operating on inmate Clarence Dixon to gain access to a vein in his groin. In the second, inmate Frank Atwood had to help point executioners to the best vein. And in the third, executioners had to insert a catheter into the groin of inmate Murray Hooper after failing to find a vein.
Those incidents prompted Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs to temporarily suspend executions to conduct a review of the process.
During that suspension, Strada took the new job as Correction Commissioner in Tennessee.
His replacement, Ryan Thornell, said that upon taking charge of the Arizona execution program his team found several issues in the state’s execution practices, including instructions to only use inmates’ femoral veins — a practice that should only be used as a last resort, according to the Department of Corrections’ policy.
When he moved to Tennessee, Strada made several changes to that state’s execution protocols, including eliminating the practice of actually inserting an IV into volunteers during live rehearsals.
Officials have not given a reason why Pike survived after being given two doses of the fatal drug, but her lawyers say that executioners spent over an hour attempting to successfully establish an IV. In May, Tennessee inmate Tony Carruthers failed to be executed after the execution team tried over a dozen times to puncture a vein.
Strada resigned his post following Pike’s attempted execution and will step away later this month.
Compared to other methods, lethal injection has the highest rate of botched executions. An execution is said to have been “botched” if it involves a “breakdown in established protocols, unanticipated delays, or technical problems that arguably cause unnecessary agony for the prisoner or reflect gross incompetence by the executioners,” according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Executions resumed in Arizona in 2025\. Since then, three executions have taken place. There are currently 107 Arizona inmates on death row.
