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Pike has come off a ventilator six days after Tennessee’s attempt to execute her failed, but doctors say her long-term prognosis remains unclear.
Christa Pike is conscious and speaking in a hospital six days after Tennessee gave her two doses of pentobarbital in an attempt to execute her for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
Pike’s attorneys said the 50-year-old remains in critical care after previously being unconscious and dependent on a ventilator. They say her arms suffered severe burns and blistering during the execution attempt and she remains handcuffed and shackled to her hospital bed. Dr. Joel Zivot, who consulted for her legal team, said her progress is encouraging but warned serious complications remain possible.
Her lawyers return to court today seeking an order preserving evidence from the September 30 execution, including drug lot numbers and prison records. Gov. Bill Lee has halted further executions and ordered an independent review. Pike’s attorneys are also renewing their request for Lee to commute her sentence to life without parole.
What happens after Pike recovers is uncharted territory. Other states have attempted executions again after officials failed to establish IV access, but Pike survived after Tennessee administered the lethal drug itself. Legal experts are already divided over whether another attempt would violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment or double jeopardy.
Hot Take: Tennessee strapped Pike down, administered its execution drugs and waited for her to die. She didn’t. Six days later she is awake and talking, and the state is left with a question nobody wrote into the protocol: what do you do when the condemned prisoner survives the execution?
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Attorney Teny Geragos has joined the high-profile civil case involving seven students accused of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman after a fraternity party.
One of the attorneys who helped Sean “Diddy” Combs beat federal racketeering and sex-trafficking charges is now representing the seven Cornell students accused of raping a fellow student.
Teny Geragos of the Agnifilo firm is handling the case after representing Combs during his blockbuster federal trial. The seven men are accused in a civil lawsuit of sexually assaulting Jane Doe after she says she was drugged with ketamine following a Chi Phi fraternity party in October 2024. The men deny rape and maintain the sexual activity was consensual.
The case has attracted scrutiny because Cornell conducted its own lengthy disciplinary proceedings while prosecutors separately declined to bring criminal charges. Court records also contain competing accounts of the night, messages exchanged afterward and disputes over the evidence considered by the university. Geragos now enters a civil fight already attracting national attention.
Hot Take: Diddy walked into federal court facing racketeering and sex-trafficking charges and walked out acquitted of both. Now one of the lawyers who helped get him there has arrived at Cornell. Seven defendants already had a complicated case. They just hired somebody accustomed to considerably hotter courtrooms.
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Douglas says he and Reiner privately compared their struggles as fathers while sons Cameron Douglas and Nick Reiner battled serious drug problems.
Michael Douglas has revealed the deeply personal conversations he shared with Rob Reiner about their sons’ drug problems years before Reiner and wife Michele were stabbed to death and their son Nick was charged with their murders.
In his memoir One Helluva Ride, Douglas writes that both fathers had reached the “end of our rope” at times. Douglas’ son Cameron battled addiction and spent nearly seven years in federal prison before rebuilding his life. Nick Reiner also struggled with substance abuse and is now awaiting trial for allegedly killing his parents inside their Brentwood home.
Douglas described the conversations as a “heartbreaking confessional” that gave both men some comfort. After the Reiners’ deaths, he said the tragedy had exposed how much pressure his friend had been carrying privately while continuing his public and professional life.
Hot Take: Two famous fathers once sat together trying to figure out how to save their sons. Douglas eventually watched Cameron rebuild his life. Rob Reiner never got the same ending. Years later, those private conversations read considerably differently.
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David Rush pleaded guilty to inventing a secret intelligence program and diverting federal money into gold, luxury watches, property and expensive cars.
A former senior CIA official has admitted stealing roughly $194 million from the federal government through an extraordinary fraud built around a secret intelligence program that did not exist.
David J. Rush, 49, pleaded guilty in federal court after admitting he fabricated government authorities, including a fictional Special Access Program, and used them to obtain federal funds. Prosecutors say about $145 million was transferred toward purchases including real estate, watches and vehicles.
When FBI agents searched Rush’s Virginia home in May, they found 298 gold bars purchased for roughly $46 million, about $2.1 million in cash, more than €100,000 and luxury watches. Rush has agreed to forfeit those assets, properties, 30 watches and two 2026 BMW Alpinas. He faces up to 20 years in prison when sentenced in January.
**Hot Take: **Plenty of government fraud cases end with offshore accounts and shell companies. This guy allegedly went full Bond villain. Two hundred ninety-eight gold bars, piles of cash, Rolexes and a pair of Alpinas were sitting at the end of the trail. Subtlety apparently wasn’t included in the imaginary intelligence program.
The state says Murdaugh’s lawyers received the raw phone evidence repeatedly before his first murder trial and has produced receipts to prove it.
South Carolina prosecutors are hitting back hard at Alex Murdaugh’s claim that his defense lacks crucial cellphone evidence needed for his 2027 retrial over the murders of wife Maggie and son Paul.
Murdaugh’s lawyers asked the court to compel production of raw extraction files and other phone data so their forensic expert could conduct an independent examination. Prosecutors responded that the defense received everything it is demanding multiple times beginning in 2022, including complete unredacted raw data from phones belonging to Alex, Maggie and Paul.
The state also produced a January 2023 email from defense attorney Jim Griffin acknowledging that a late discovery request was the defense team’s responsibility and praising prosecutors and investigators for cooperating. Prosecutors nevertheless say they will supply the material yet again if Murdaugh’s attorneys provide a hard drive large enough to hold it.
**Hot Take: **Discovery fights are usually buried beneath enough technical jargon to tranquilize a horse. This one comes with a receipt. Prosecutors say Murdaugh’s team already got the files, got replacements and acknowledged the state had cooperated. Their closing offer is practically dripping from the page: bring another hard drive and we’ll copy them again.
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