Texas executes Jamaal Howard

Texas carries out 1st US execution since Christa Pike's botched lethal injection

A death row inmate was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday evening in Texas, the 1st execution in the US since the failed attempt to put Christa Pike to death last week.

Lawyers for 46-year-old Jamaal Howard had asked a judge to pause the execution in light of Pike's botched injections last week, according to the BBC's US partner, CBS News.

But courts denied their requests, and he received a fatal dose of pentobarbital at the state prison in Huntsville. He was pronounced dead at 20:03 local time.

Howard was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2000 murder of a convenience store clerk during a robbery he committed.

His lawyers had argued that because Texas planned to inject Howard with the same drug—pentobarbital—that was used on Pike, he faced the same risks. They also alleged that Texas' supply of the drug had become degraded, as Pike's lawyers have similarly argued.

A court twice denied their appeals, and the US Supreme Court also turned down the appeal late Wednesday.

"Texas should not be eager to follow in Tennessee's footsteps; a stay would keep that from happening," Howard's attorneys had argued, CBS reported.

Howard's attorneys also asked Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, to delay the execution by 30 days so they could seek additional information about the drug used in the execution. The governor did not grant the delay.

Howard was 20 when he shot Vickie Swartout, 42, who was working at a convenience store in Texas. Howard stole a carton of cigarettes and $114 from the register.

Asked if he had a final statement before his execution, Howard apologized to Swartout's family, who watched from a witness room, US media report.

"I wish that you accept my apology, and I wish for your forgiveness," Howard said. "I'm sorry for what happened. I wish you can learn to forgive me one of these days."

Howard becomes the 7th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 603rd overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Howard becomes the 85th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since Greg Abbott became governor in 2015.

Howard becomes the 39th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,684th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977, after a 4-year moratorium.

Source: BBC News, Staff; Rick Halperin, October 7, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde

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