The head of the Tennessee Department of Correction will resign following the failed execution of death row inmate Christa Pike, who remained critically ill after receiving two lethal doses of pentobarbital on Wednesday.
Governor Bill Lee announced Saturday that Commissioner Frank Strada would leave his position this month as an independent review examines the attempted execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Lee has also halted Tennessee executions for the remainder of 2026.
Strada said he believed department personnel followed proper protocol but that stepping aside was in the state's best interests while the investigation proceeds.
An interim commissioner will be announced later, according to the governor's office.
Pike's attorneys called the resignation justified but argued the incident reflected broader problems within Tennessee's death penalty system.
The Department of Correction has defended its actions, saying its protocol did not permit additional procedures beyond those carried out.
Authorities have not explained what went wrong or said whether another attempt will eventually be made to execute Pike.
Her lawyers filed an emergency motion Friday seeking to preserve all evidence connected to the failed procedure.
Pike, 50, was unconscious, intubated and on a ventilator as of Thursday night after surviving the injections and being transported by ambulance to a Nashville hospital.
Her lawyers said doctors were working to clear pentobarbital from her body.
They had previously warned that Pike's small veins and thrombocytosis, a blood-clotting condition, could make intravenous access difficult and increase the risk of unnecessary pain and suffering.
The attempted execution proceeded after unsuccessful last-minute legal challenges, including two efforts rejected by the US Supreme Court, while Lee denied Pike's clemency request.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1995 torture and killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, committed when Pike was 18.
She is the only woman on Tennessee's death row.