At a court hearing on Wednesday, Tennessee Assistant Attorney General Will Ayers told the judge he did not know whether the state intends to try to execute her again.

The judge ordered the state to preserve all evidence related to the failed injections. That evidence could lay the groundwork for a future lawsuit against the state.

Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom they had met at a job training camp for low-income young people.

Shipp was spared the death penalty because he was not legally an adult when the crime was committed. He remains in prison.

Pike was the first woman scheduled to be executed in the state of Tennessee in over 200 years.

Her lawyers have spent decades appealing her case. In the days leading up to her scheduled execution, both the US Supreme Court and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee declined to block the execution.

Since it failed, Pike's lawyers have renewed their calls for her sentence to be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Read More