Bill Lee has granted a reprieve of execution to Gary Wayne Sutton until at least Oct. 7. But what comes next is unsettled. Immediately after the botched execution of Christa Pike, the governor halted executions through the rest of the year,

James Robertson was the state’s 17th execution this year, amid scrutiny over failed lethal injection of Christa Pike

Christa Pike's botched execution in Tennessee was not the first to go wrong on Frank Strada's watch. Before he took charge of Tennessee's prisons, Strada oversaw three botched executions in Arizona.

James Robertson, 63, was pronounced dead at 12:32 p.m. following a three-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and waived all post-conviction appeals in the 2008 strangling of Frank Hart.

Two death penality cases in the US have shocked the world: one for being botched and the other for possibly being made public.

Christa Pike's situation has similarities to a 1947 Supreme Court case.

When Christa Pike was sentenced to die in 1996 after being convicted of murdering a classmate, Tennessee was among 37 states that had capital punishment, and the number of annual executions in the U.S. was on the rise. Since then, 10 states have abolished capital punishment, and executions haven't approached their late 1990s peak.

Supply-chain issues and a series of botched executions involving lethal injection are causing officials to weigh alternative options for carrying out the death penalty.