Historically, the US Supreme Court has not halted second attempts at executions, said John Mills, an attorney who works with inmates sentenced to death.
In 2024, it allowed the state of Alabama to proceed with a second execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith, after their attempt to execute him by lethal injection failed two years before. Alabama used an experimental oxygen deprivation method to put Smith to death.
A notable Supreme Court case from 1947 allowed the state of Louisiana to attempt a second electrocution of Willie Smith, a black teenager whose first execution attempt failed when he was 17 years old.
The court found a second execution would not violate the Constitution's prohibitions against double jeopardy or cruel and unusual punishment, and Smith was executed aged 18.
"If the question is, is it likely the federal courts would intervene in a second attempt? I'm afraid the answer is a resounding no," Mills said of Pike's case.
Pike's lawyers have already filed a motion to stay her execution.
Mills said that if he was her lawyer, he would be asking the federal courts to reconsider their views on a second attempt and "would also be looking at the Tennessee constitution and ask the Tennessee courts to reconsider".
Mills added that he would also approach Governor Lee, who has powers to issue stays of executions and exercise clemency.
Opponents of the death penalty have been quick to react.
Maya Foa, the chief executive of international legal organisation Reprieve, said: "We cannot know exactly what went wrong, because so much happened behind a curtain – lethal injection relies on secrecy at every stage, to hide the violence of the state taking a human life."
Authorities are yet to say whether they will try again to execute Pike. There is a historical precedent of authorities making a second attempt to execute those on death row.
Meanwhile Shipp, Pike's boyfriend and co-defendant, remains in prison, having been spared the death penalty under state law. He was 17 at the time that Slemmer was killed.
In recent years, states have found some drugs needed for lethal injections harder to come by, because pharmaceutical companies have opposed the use of their products for such purposes.
The Tennessee Department of Correction has not specifically addressed an allegation from Pike's legal team that the pentobarbital it used was "degraded". Drugs may degrade for a number of reasons, including if it has aged beyond its use-by date and its potency has decreased.
The department issued a broader defence of its method, writing in a statement: "The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective."
Some manufacturers have explicitly said they will no longer produce pentobarbital or will restrict their use in executions, according to Alexis Hoag-Fordjor, Co-Director of the Center for Criminal Justice at Brooklyn Law School.
In 2024, for instance, the manufacturer Absolute Standards said it would no longer make the drug., external
"It's unclear, the quality and the effectiveness of the drug" used in Pike's execution, Hoag-Fordjor told the BBC, given how difficult it has been for states like Tennessee to obtain pentobarbital. "It shouldn't be a surprise something went wrong."
The predicament Tennessee authorities found themselves in - having to call emergency medical services to save Pike after trying to kill her - suggested there was "no plan in place" for a scenario like Pike's, Hoag-Fordjor said.
"It's just such a bizarre reality to continue with capital punishment."
The attempted execution of Pike was not the first in Tennessee in 2026 that did not go to plan.
The execution of Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering three people in 1994, was postponed in May after staff were unable to find a vein to administer a lethal injection. He was given a one-year reprieve by Governor Bill Lee.
More widely across the US, the issue of botched executions continues to cause alarm.
In 2022, more than a third of executions in the US were botched or highly problematic, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) - an organisation that provides statistics and research on the death penalty but does not take a stance on it morally.
The DPI says lethal injection has the highest rate of botched executions.
An incident in Oklahoma in 2014 gained particular notoriety. The execution of Clayton Lockett was postponed after 20 minutes because the lethal injection of three drugs failed to work properly when one of his veins ruptured, and he went on to writhe and shake uncontrollably.
In the US, 27 of the 50 states have the death penalty under state law. The federal government can also carry out executions after President Donald Trump, a supporter of capital punishment, ended a moratorium last year, However, it is yet to actually carry out any executions since then.