Tennessee Death Row Inmate Spared After Botched Christa Pike Execution

A Tennessee death row inmate convicted of killing his buddy shortly after bailing him out of jail just caught a major break ... thanks to the botched execution of Christa Pike.

Gary Wayne Sutton was scheduled to be executed Dec. 3, but Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee pulled the plug on the state's remaining executions this year after officials failed to put Pike to death.

Sutton has been sitting on death row for decades for the 1992 murders of siblings Tommy Griffin and Connie Branam ... and the circumstances surrounding Griffin's death are especially wild.

According to court records ... Sutton, his uncle James Dellinger, and Griffin were out drinking when a fight broke out. Cops eventually picked up Griffin -- who was reportedly shirtless and scratched up -- and jailed him for public intoxication.

Sutton and Dellinger then bailed Griffin out ... and about 30 minutes later, witnesses heard gunshots near where Griffin was later found dead with a shotgun wound to the head.

Prosecutors said Branam went searching for her brother the following day with Sutton and Dellinger ... but she too wound up dead, her badly burned body discovered inside a scorched car.

Dellinger was also sentenced to death, though he died of natural causes behind bars before he could be executed ... Sutton has maintained his innocence.

As TMZ previously reported, Pike survived two doses of a lethal-injection drug during Tennessee's attempt to execute her last week. Witnesses heard her breathing and making disturbing noises, and she was eventually rushed to the hospital.

She remains critically ill, unconscious, and on a ventilator.