How to get process status using pid?

here's a quick hack using procfs (assuming you're using Linux):

def procStatus(pid):
    for line in open("/proc/%d/status" % pid).readlines():
        if line.startswith("State:"):
            return line.split(":",1)[1].strip().split(' ')[0]
    return None

this function should return 'Z' for zombies.

You could use a the status feature from psutil:

import psutil
p = psutil.Process(the_pid_you_want)
if p.status == psutil.STATUS_ZOMBIE:
    ....