Texas carries out its first execution in the United States since the failure of Tennessee

A Texas death row inmate convicted of a fatal 2000 robbery and executed Wednesday night is the first person put to death in the country since a failed execution in Tennessee sparked concern over lethal injection.

Jamaal Howard was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m., according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. In his closing statement, Howard apologized to the family of the woman he was convicted of murdering and thanked her family.

“I hope you accept my apology and I want your forgiveness,” Howard said. “I’m sorry for what happened, I wish you could learn to forgive me one of these days.”

Howard was 20 when he robbed a convenience store and shot the clerk, killing Vickie Swartout, 42, in Silsbee, north of Beaumont. Howard was convicted less than a year later and sentenced to death in Hardin County.

Howard’s execution was the first in the United States since the September 30 assassination attempt in Tennessee. Christa Pike survived after being injected twice with the deadly drug pentobarbital. Pike, who was convicted in 1996 of murdering 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, has regained consciousness and is speaking after her failed execution, her lawyers said Tuesday.

Texas, where the first execution by lethal injection took place in 1982, also uses pentobarbital in its executions. Howard’s lawyers sent a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott asking him to delay his execution for 30 days while awaiting information from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice on the safety of using the state’s drug stockpile.

“We are not asking you to decide anything about Mr. Howard’s case other than this: that he should not be executed with a drug the State refused to tell its lawyers about, days after that same drug failed in another state,” Howard’s lawyers wrote.

Abbott did not respond to the letter and his office did not respond to questions before the execution asking whether he intended to do so.

Texas uses compounded pentobarbital in pharmacies because drug manufacturers refuse to sell the drug for use in executions. Because of the resulting limited supply, the state tests the vials of the drug it has and extends its use date if it determines it will work effectively, a process that critics have called dangerous.

In 2023, before Robert Fratta’s execution, a Travis County district judge temporarily banned the use of the drug due to concerns about the practice. The execution ultimately took place after the decision was overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Howard has had several unsuccessful appeals since his conviction, the last of which was filed Wednesday morning and was subsequently rejected by the CCA. This and two other appeals filed with the U.S. Supreme Court briefly delayed Howard’s execution before the courts denied the motions.

Howard’s petition to the Supreme Court argued that he suffered from mental illness and intellectual disability, making him ineligible for the death penalty under the protections of the Eighth Amendment. Before his trial, the court held two competency hearings at the request of the State to determine Howard’s fitness. The jury deadlocked the first time and found him competent the second time after Howard’s attorney failed to call his expert witness, according to court records.

Howard was the seventh man executed in Texas this year. Two more men are expected to be executed in 2026.

John Rubio, convicted of murdering his three children in 2003, is the next man to be executed. Rubio had also raised concerns about the state’s use of pentobarbital, suing the state in August alongside another death row inmate, LeJames Norman — who has since been executed — in an effort to block Texas’ use of the drug and, subsequently, its executions.

The suit argued that Texas’ supply of the drug was either expired or created through unreliable means at third-party compounding facilities. The CCA blocked the judge in the case after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a request with the appeals court asking him to do so, arguing that the lower court did not have the ability to block a criminal proceeding through a civil action.