Texas carried out the execution of a man convicted in the fatal robbery of a convenience store clerk Wednesday night, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene. His lawyers had argued that the lethal injection drug planned for use in Texas raised concerns following a botched execution in Tennessee the previous week.
Jamaal Howard, 46, was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m. He had been sentenced to death for the 2000 killing of Vickie Swartout, 42, in Silsbee, Texas.
In seeking to stop the execution, Howard’s attorneys cited the Sept. 30 attempt to execute Tennessee death row prisoner Christa Pike. They said Pike remained alive after receiving two doses of pentobarbital and warned that Texas’ use of the same drug could create comparable problems.
“Texas should not be eager to follow in Tennessee’s footsteps; a stay would keep that from happening,” Howard’s lawyers wrote in a court filing.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to stop Jamaal Howard’s execution after his attorneys challenged Texas’ planned use of the lethal injection drug. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice; AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)
The Supreme Court denied Howard’s emergency request without issuing an explanation. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone justice to publicly dissent, Fox News reported.
Earlier, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had turned down two separate efforts to postpone the execution over questions surrounding the drug.
The Associated Press reported that Howard took several breaths and gasped as the pentobarbital began to take effect Wednesday evening.
He then made snoring noises, coughed and began snoring again. The sounds gradually faded, and his movements stopped after roughly 30 seconds. Officials pronounced him dead 19 minutes later.
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Jamaal Howard, 46, was put to death in Texas on Oct. 7, 2026, for the 2000 murder of convenience store clerk Vickie Swartout. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice)
Court filings also said Howard’s attorneys had sought details about the amount of pentobarbital the Texas Department of Criminal Justice intended to administer.
Their concerns were fueled partly by Pike’s failed execution attempt, during which she reportedly survived two doses of the drug.
Howard was executed on the same day a Tennessee judge granted Pike’s attorneys’ request requiring the state Department of Correction to preserve evidence tied to the unsuccessful procedure.
The Death Penalty Information Center has described Pike as the first person in the modern era known to survive a lethal injection.
Randy Spivey, an attorney for Christa Pike, the Tennessee death row prisoner who survived a botched execution, speaks with reporters alongside Luke Ihnen outside a Nashville courtroom on Oct. 7, 2026, after attorneys provided an update on Pike’s case. (Reuters/Seth Herald)
Howard’s lawyers additionally told the Supreme Court that the execution should be blocked because he was intellectually disabled. Texas officials countered that the defense had not supplied evidence showing that Howard 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 of the crime and took $114 from the store’s cash register.