The execution of a Texas man on Wednesday evening demonstrates the "incompetence" of the execution team that failed to execute Christa Pike in Tennessee, the inmate’s spiritual adviser told Newsweek. Jamaal Howard, 46, was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m. after receiving a lethal injection of pentobarbital at the state prison in Huntsville. He was condemned for the killing of 42-year-old Vickie Swartout during a store robbery.
The Reverend Jeff Hood, who was in the execution chamber with Howard, told Newsweek in a phone interview hours after the execution took place that it took place without any problems. "It was just routine for them," he said. "They have a very set regimen about how they do this and you know, there didn't seem to be any problems at all.
And I think that that speaks to the level of incompetence that must be in place in Tennessee." Newsweek has contacted the Tennessee Department of Correction for comment via an email sent outside regular business hours and is awaiting a response. Howard is the first inmate executed in the U.S. since Tennessee attempted to put Pike to death on September 30. Pike, who was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of classmate Colleen Slemmer, is believed to be the first person to survive after receiving lethal injection drugs during an execution.
Her failed execution has brought fresh scrutiny on how states carry out the death penalty, particularly when using a lethal injection. Pike was unconscious and hospitalized after surviving two doses of pentobarbital in Tennessee’s execution chamber, but her attorneys said she regained consciousness and was speaking on Tuesday. Hood, a longtime anti-death penalty activist, has been a spiritual adviser to dozens of death row inmates across the U.S. over the past decade.
Among those is Gary Wayne Sutton, a Tennessee death row inmate whose scheduled execution was paused last week following Pike’s failed execution. He said he has witnessed executions in five states—Alabama, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. "Texas is very regimented.
They know exactly what they're doing. If Texas botched an execution, I would be very surprised," Hood said. I mean, you don't see something like what happened to Christa Pike and not be concerned.
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