Texas Execution Halted by Lawyers Citing Recent Botched Lethal Injection
Attorneys for Jamaal Howard argue the same drug used in a recent failed execution in Tennessee poses risks due to degradation.
Lawyers for Jamaal Howard, a Texas man scheduled for execution Wednesday, are asking a judge to stay his lethal injection, citing the botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee last week. This marks the first execution scheduled in the U.S. since Pike's.
Honda's attorneys contend that the drug pentobarbital, slated for use in his execution, poses the same risks as it did in Pike's case, suggesting the state's supply may have degraded. Pike's lawyers are seeking more information about why the 50-year-old survived two doses of the drug, after which she was hospitalized and reportedly awake and speaking. Her attorneys alleged that her execution was marred by blown veins, deteriorated pentobarbital, and a lack of emergency medical care.
"There is a similar risk that Texas’s execution drugs are likewise degraded, as they are far past the original beyond-use dates that the pharmacopeia allows for drugs of this kind," Howard's attorneys wrote in their motion.
Howard, 46, was convicted of capital murder in the 2000 killing of Vickie Swartout, 42, who was shot during a robbery. Surveillance video showed Howard shooting Swartout after taking $114 and cigarettes from the convenience store in Silsbee, Texas. Howard was 20 at the time of the crime.
His attorneys have also argued that Howard is intellectually disabled and that his execution should be halted, a claim the state disputes, stating he has not presented sufficient evidence to meet the requirements for such a claim. The U.S. Supreme Court barred the execution of intellectually disabled individuals in 2002, but states have discretion in determining such disabilities.
Howard's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is pending. His legal team filed requests for information regarding the lethal dose of pentobarbital the Texas Department of Criminal Justice intended to use. They stated that the department sought an opinion from the state attorney general on whether this information would need to be disclosed, despite a historical practice of transparency. The attorney general's opinion is not expected before Howard's scheduled execution.
Texas has executed six individuals this year, with two more scheduled after Howard, which would bring the national total to 30 executions in 2026. Florida has carried out the most executions this year with 16. Tennessee's Republican Governor Bill Lee has halted the state's one remaining execution for the year.