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Jamaal Howard was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m. Wednesday at the state prison in Huntsville after receiving a dose of pentobarbital the Associated Press reported. The 46-year-old apologized profusely to members of his victim’s family who witnessed the procedure from a window just feet away a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson told the news agency. Howard had been convicted of capital murder in the shooting death of Vickie Swartout during a robbery captured on surveillance video according to court records summarized by the Texas Tribune.
Howard 20 years old at the time of the crime robbed a Silsbee convenience store north of Beaumont and shot the 42-year-old clerk before stealing $114 and a carton of cigarettes the Texas Tribune reported. He was convicted less than a year later and sentenced to death in Hardin County. The execution marked the seventh carried out in Texas this year and came despite last-minute appeals that cited both intellectual disability and risks tied to the lethal drug.
Howard’s attorneys had asked Gov. Greg Abbott for a 30-day reprieve to examine the state’s pentobarbital supply following Pike’s experience and argued in court filings that the inmate was intellectually disabled and ineligible for execution under Supreme Court precedent the Texas Tribune stated. A Texas appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court denied the requests without comment according to the Associated Press. The denials cleared the way for the procedure to move forward as scheduled.
In Tennessee on Sept. 30 Christa Pike survived after being injected twice with pentobarbital the same sedative used in Texas NPR reported. The 50-year-old convicted of a 1995 murder complained that her arms felt as if they were going to explode and continued breathing and snoring after losing consciousness her lawyers told the network. Pike later regained consciousness and by Tuesday was speaking though she has since developed pneumonia and remains unable to move her arms according to her legal team.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee halted all remaining executions in the state for the year and ordered an independent investigation into the failed procedure that has been described by the Death Penalty Information Center as the first instance of an inmate surviving a full lethal injection attempt. Pike’s case was the second botched execution in Tennessee in 2026 following an earlier incident involving Tony Carruthers in May where officials could not establish required IV lines the USA Today reported. Attorneys for both Pike and Howard raised concerns about IV placement blood disorders and potential degradation of the drug past its beyond-use date.
Death Penalty Information Center figures show Howard’s execution brought the national total for 2026 to 30 with Florida leading the way at 16 and Texas now at seven. Texas became the first state to adopt lethal injection in 1982 and has carried out more than 600 executions since then according to the center’s data. Two additional executions remain scheduled in Texas before the end of the year including that of John Rubio convicted in the 2003 murders of his three children the Texas Tribune noted.
