Texas is set to carry out the first execution in the U.S. since Tennessee's botched lethal injection of Christa Pike.
Texas plans to execute Jamaal Howard, 46, by lethal injection on Oct. 7 despite concerns over the planned use of the same drug that failed to kill Pike and arguments that Howard is too intellectually disabled to be put to death. Howard was convicted of the 2000 murder of Chevron clerk Vickie Swartout during a robbery in Silsbee, a small town just northeast of Houston.
If Howard's execution moves forward, he will become the seventh inmate executed in Texas this year and the 30th in the nation.
Howard's execution comes as the lethal injection method sits under a microscope following two botched executions in four months in Tennessee:
The case of Pike one week ago and that of Tony Carruthers in May.
Attorneys believe that Pike's IV lines were improperly placed or that Pike's veins had blown, causing some or all of the pentobarbital to enter her arm's soft tissue rather than her bloodstream. In Carruthers' case, executioners failed to establish a second IV line required under the state's execution protocol and couldn't place a central line.
In the wake of Pike's botched execution, Howard's attorneys are asking Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to issue a 30-day reprieve so that they can get records about when the pentobarbital was purchased, how it was stored and what testing it has undergone.
“Texas should not wait until after a failed execution to ask the same questions,” they told the governor, referring to Tennessee's lack of transparency when it comes to where it gets pentobarbital and other details about how it handles the lethal drug.
USA TODAY has reached out to Abbott's office for comment and will update this story if his representatives respond.
Here's what you need to know about Howard's execution.
When is Jamaal Howard's execution?
Howard is set to be executed at 6 p.m. CT on Oct. 7 at what's known as the Huntsville Unit at a state prison just outside of Houston.
How are Jamaal Howard's attorneys trying to stop the execution?
In arguing for a reprieve for Howard, his attorneys wrote that repercussion of failed executions “fall not only on the condemned but on the officers who carry out executions, on the families of victims who are promised a resolution that does not come, and on public confidence in the State’s capacity to carry out its most serious act.”
They told Abbott that Howard ":should not be executed with a drug whose history the State has refused to let his lawyers see, within days of the same drug failing in another state.”
Howard's spiritual adviser told USA TODAY that Tennessee's recent botches are creating "a tremendous amount of anxiety" for Howard.
"One of these executions could be botched at any time and at any place," said the Rev. Jeff Hood. "What happened in Tennessee shows all of us what’s possible . . . Instead of trying to get ourselves to places where we limit the horrifying situations, we perpetuate them and call them normal."
In addition to appealing to the governor to intervene, Howard's attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution on Oct. 6. That request doesn't mention Pike but focuses on Howard's intellectual disabilities.
"No court has ever decided whether Howard is intellectually disabled under the clinical standards that govern today," they wrote, saying that he has an IQ as low as 70. "Howard’s evidence of significantly subaverage intellectual functioning is not reasonably disputable."
The state has not yet filed its reply.
Both the Texas Court of Criminal Appeal and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles already declined to intervene in Howard's execution.
What did Jamaal Howard do?
Just before lunchtime on May 12, 2000, 42-year-old clerk Vickie Swartout was working alone inside a Chevron gas station when then-20-year-old Jamaal Howard walked in.
Surveillance footage showed that Howard immediately walked up to Swartout, pointed a Colt .32-caliber gun at her and fired. The gun failed to go off and Swartout screamed. Howard then cocked the gun and then shot her in the chest, court records show.
Howard stole some cigarettes and $114 from the cash register, and as Swartout lay dying, he asked her: "Do you have any more money in here?" according to the surveillance video cited in court records. Howard then fled and Swartout died within minutes.
Tom Nelson, Silsbee's police chief at the time, told reporters that investigators found Howard hiding in a closet in a home next door to his grandparent's house.
"He was grinning from ear to ear," Texas Ranger L.C. Wilson testified at Howard's trial, according to an archived story in the Beaumont Enterprise.
Howard's defense attorney at the time, Tyrone Moncriffe, acknowledged that his client killed Swartout but said that Howard was insane and "probably needs to be locked up for the rest of his life in an asylum," the Enterprise reported.
Prosecutor Perry Thomas argued that nothing Howard did on the day of the murder indicated insanity.
"He pulled the trigger at Vickie, and when the gun didn't go off, he cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger again," Thomas said, according to the Enterprise. "He ran home. He took off the cap and shirt he was wearing. He hid in a closet in an abandoned house nearby."
Thomas added: "He knows exactly what he's done. He knew that day."
Jurors found Howard guilty of capital murder after less than three hours of deliberations. They rejected the option to find Howard not guilty by reason of insanity.
What has Vickie Swartout's mother said about the execution?
Swartout's mother, JoAnne Swartout, died in 2024 but previously said that she was devastated by her daughter's murder.
"Vickie was a kind and loving person and her death tore us apart," she told the Enterprise in 2001.
She added that she thought the death sentence was appropriate for her daughter's killer.
"I believe he deserves to die for his crime," she said, adding that she sympathized with Howard's heartbroken family. "I feel very bad for his mother ... but I can't overlook what he did."
Contributing: James Powel, USA TODAY
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime and courts reporter who covers the death penalty, cold cases and breaking news for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas set to carry out 1st execution in nation since Christa Pike botch
