Record of 'botched' executions follows Tennessee's corrections chief

Following the botched execution of Christa Pike, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee faced questions on Thursday about the record of his corrections commissioner, who previously oversaw prisons in Arizona where advocates say three executions were botched.

Lee pushed back on the questions about the record of Tennessee Department of Corrections commissioner Frank Strada, who was brought into the role in 2023 in part to revamp the state’s execution policy.

“So far as we know, the Department of Correction followed exactly the protocol that was outlined, and vetted, and approved by the attorney general's office,” Lee said Thursday morning.

Strada began serving as the Deputy Director for the Arizona Department of Correction in January 2020 after serving as the director of operations for private prison operator The Geo Group, according to his LinkedIn page.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, each of the three executions Arizona conducted in 2022 was “visibly problematic.”

This included the execution of Clarence Dixon, when medical officials reportedly had difficulty finding his vein and then opted to make an incision near his groin after about 25 minutes, according to the AP.

In the case of Frank Atwood, medical personnel struggled to find his vein, and they opted to insert it into Atwood’s right hand based on his own suggestion, according to a witness.

For Murray Hooper, medical officials again struggled to find his vein and ended up inserting a catheter near his groin, according to the Arizona Republic. 

While there is no official definition for the term “botched execution,” the Death Penalty Information Center defined each of the three executions as botched. According to the organization, lethal injection has the highest rate of botched instances compared to other common methods, such as lethal gas, electrocution, and hanging.

Those three executions were the state’s first since 2014, when the lethal injection of Joseph Wood took nearly two hours and resulted in him visibly struggling to breathe. The AP reported that Wood was injected with the lethal drugs 15 times, and his attorneys described it as a "horrifically botched execution.”

Arizona paused executions after Wood’s lethal injection in 2014, before resuming them in 2022 with Clarence Dixon. At the time, Strada was a deputy of Arizona’s Department of Corrections.

After the three executions in 2022 went wrong, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs signed an executive order directing an independent review of the state’s execution policy and paused lethal injections in the state.

“Arizona has a history of executions that have resulted in serious questions about [Arizona Department of Correction, Rehabilitation, & Reentry] execution protocols and lack of transparency,” the order said.

About a month before Hobbs signed her executive order, Tennessee's Gov. Lee announced that Strada would take over the state’s Department of Correction.

“Frank’s extensive corrections management and law enforcement experience make him well-suited to lead the Department of Correction, and I am confident he will serve Tennessee with integrity,” Lee said on Jan. 3, 2023.

At the time of his appointment, Tennessee too had paused executions after a 2022 incident when a lethal injection was halted at the last minute because officials failed to properly test the drugs.

By December 2024 -- under Strada’s leadership -- the Tennessee Department of Correction issued new protocols to resume lethal injections in the state.

“I am confident the lethal injection process can proceed in compliance with departmental policy and state laws,” Strada said at the time.

Executions resumed in Tennessee in May 2025. The state has conducted four executions since, but botched two in the last five months.

Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee's death row, is in critical condition at a hospital and receiving "life-saving care" after a botched execution attempt Wednesday night, her attorneys told reporters at an online press conference on Thursday.

"Christa is alive right now. We don't have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment, but we do know that she is alive right now and receiving life-saving medical care," said Randy Spivey, an attorney with the Tennessee Office of the Post-Conviction Defender.

Following the botched Pike execution, the state -- for the second time under Gov. Lee -- paused executions and vowed to conduct an independent review of the state’s protocols.

When reached for comment by ABC News about Strada’s record, the TN DOC referred to the statement it issued earlier in the day.

“The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office. The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility,” the agency said.