Jamaal Howard is set to be executed in Texas on Wednesday, becoming the first death row inmate in the U.S. to face lethal injection since a botched execution in Tennessee left Christa Pike alive and hospitalized. Howard, 46, shot and killed convenience store clerk Vickie Swartout during a 2000 robbery in Silsbee, Texas, when he was 20 years old. He has spent more than 25 years on death row.
Howard's attorney Jeff Newberry told Newsweek that the legal team has made several attempts to halt his execution, citing concerns over Texas’s use of pentobarbital, the same drug used in Pike’s failed execution, as well as longstanding claims that Howard has an intellectual disability. Howard is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Central Time in Texas on October 7.
Texas’s pentobarbital supply has come under scrutiny because the state relies on compounded, rather than commercially manufactured, drugs obtained through largely undisclosed pharmacies. Critics have challenged its practice of retaining, retesting and extending the usable dates of aging doses, raising questions about their potency, sterility and safety. Newsweek has contacted the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Pike’s attorneys and Howard’s spiritual adviser via email on Wednesday and is awaiting responses.
During a convenience store robbery in 2000, Howard shot Swartout once in the chest and took $114 from the cash register and a carton of cigarettes, according to court records cited by The . The shooting was captured on the store's surveillance video. Howard's attorneys have repeatedly argued that he is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution.
While an earlier evaluation found that he did not meet the criteria for intellectual disability, his attorneys have argued that updated clinical standards warranted a new assessment. Howard’s attorney Jeff Newberry told Newsweek in an emailed statement that Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott had not responded to their request for a 30-day reprieve. On October 3, following Pike’s failed execution attempt, Howard’s attorneys had asked Abbott for the reprieve so that they could obtain records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice about the pentobarbital that is scheduled to be used in his execution, specifically when the drug was bought, how it was stored, and what testing was done.
Newberry said that governors often do not respond to reprieve requests. "We had hoped, given what happened only one week ago to Christa Pike, who, just like our client, was denied access to information about the drugs they used in their failed attempt to execute her, this time might be different. It still might be, but we have not heard from the governor yet," Newberry said.
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