A Texas death row inmate was executed Wednesday evening for the 2000 robbery-murder of a convenience store clerk after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene. His lawyers had argued that Texas should reconsider using pentobarbital following a failed execution involving the same lethal injection drug in Tennessee the previous week.
Jamaal Howard, 46, was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m. He had been sentenced to death for killing 42-year-old Vickie Swartout in Silsbee, Texas.
In an emergency filing, Howard’s attorneys cited the Sept. 30 execution attempt involving Tennessee prisoner Christa Pike. Pike reportedly survived two doses of pentobarbital, prompting Howard’s legal team to warn that the drug planned for his execution could create similar complications.
“Texas should not be eager to follow in Tennessee’s footsteps; a stay would keep that from happening,” Howard’s lawyers wrote.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt Jamaal Howard’s execution after his attorneys raised concerns about the lethal injection drug used by Texas. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice; AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)
The Supreme Court denied Howard’s request without issuing an explanation. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only member of the court to publicly dissent, according to Fox News.
Earlier, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had rejected two separate efforts to stop the execution over concerns surrounding the state’s use of pentobarbital.
As the drug took effect Wednesday night, Howard took several breaths and gasped, The Associated Press reported.
He then made snoring sounds, coughed and began snoring again. The sounds gradually faded, and his movements ceased after roughly 30 seconds. Howard was pronounced dead 19 minutes later.
Jamaal Howard, 46, was executed in Texas on Oct. 7, 2026, for the 2000 killing of convenience store clerk Vickie Swartout. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice)
Court documents also show that Howard’s attorneys sought details about the amount of pentobarbital the Texas Department of Criminal Justice intended to administer.
Their concerns were heightened by Pike’s failed execution attempt, during which she reportedly remained alive after receiving two doses of the drug.
The timing coincided with a Tennessee judge’s decision Wednesday to grant Pike’s attorneys’ request that the state preserve evidence related to the botched execution.
The Death Penalty Information Center has identified Pike as the first person in the modern era reported to have survived a lethal injection.
Randy Spivey, an attorney for Christa Pike, a death row prisoner who survived a botched execution, speaks to the media, flanked by Luke Ihnen, after a Tennessee court was presented a status update on Pike, outside a courtroom in Nashville, Tennessee, Oct. 7, 2026. (Reuters/Seth Herald)
Howard’s legal team separately argued that the execution should be blocked because he was intellectually disabled. State officials countered that the defense had not provided evidence showing he satisfied the legal standard for intellectual disability.
Howard was convicted of capital murder in Swartout’s death. Prosecutors said she was shot once in the chest during the convenience store robbery.
Howard was 20 years old at the time. Investigators said he also took $114 from the store’s cash register.
