Archive · 8 Oct 2026
Texas Executes Jamaal Howard After Courts Reject Final Appeals
Texas executed Jamaal Howard on Wednesday evening.
He was 46 years old and had been convicted of killing Vickie Swartout during a store robbery in 2000.
Before the execution, he apologized to members of her family.
He was given a drug called pentobarbital and was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m.
His lawyers asked courts to stop the execution, arguing that he had an intellectual disability and raising concerns about the drug.
The courts rejected the requests, and the US Supreme Court did not intervene.
Howard’s execution was the first in the United States since Christa Pike survived a failed execution attempt in Tennessee a week earlier.
Pike’s lawyers say she later woke up and was speaking, though she remained seriously ill.
Tennessee’s governor halted the state’s remaining scheduled execution for the year.
Texas executed 46-year-old Jamaal Howard Wednesday evening at the state prison in Huntsville.
Howard was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m. after receiving pentobarbital; he was the 30th person executed in the United States in 2026.
He was convicted of killing convenience store clerk Vickie Swartout during a 2000 robbery in Silsbee.
Howard apologized to Swartout’s family before the execution; his sister became distressed while watching and left the witness room with officers’ help.
His lawyers challenged his execution over intellectual-disability claims and concerns about pentobarbital, but courts rejected the requests; Howard was the first person executed in the US since Christa Pike survived Tennessee’s failed attempt.
- Who
- Jamaal Howard, 46, was executed; he had been convicted of killing Vickie Swartout.
- What
- Howard was put to death by lethal injection after courts rejected last-minute appeals.
- When
- Wednesday evening; he was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m., one week after Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute Christa Pike.
- Where
- The state prison in Huntsville, Texas; the crime took place in Silsbee, Texas.
- Why
- Howard was sentenced to death for fatally shooting Swartout during a 2000 convenience-store robbery.
Howard’s attorneys
Texas and the courts
Intellectual-disability claim
Howard’s attorneys
Howard’s attorneys argued that he was intellectually disabled and therefore could not legally be executed.
Texas and the courts
The state said his lawyers had not presented evidence showing that he met the requirements for an intellectual-disability claim; courts rejected the appeals and the US Supreme Court declined to intervene.
Execution drugs
Howard’s attorneys
Howard’s attorneys raised concerns about the quality of Texas’ execution drugs and argued that pentobarbital posed risks similar to those in Christa Pike’s failed execution.
Texas and the courts
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied two filings about the drugs without comment, allowing the execution to proceed.
- Age
- Howard was 46; he was 20 when the crime occurred.
- Execution method
- Lethal injection using pentobarbital.
- Time pronounced dead
- 8:03 p.m. local time.
- Victim
- Vickie Swartout, 42, was shot once in the chest during the robbery.
- Robbery
- Court records cited in the reports say Howard took $114 and a carton of cigarettes from the store.
- Execution totals
- Howard was the 30th person executed in the United States in 2026 and Texas’ seventh that year.
- Appeals
- Courts rejected arguments concerning intellectual disability and Texas’ execution drugs; the US Supreme Court declined to intervene.
- Christa Pike case
- Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital in Tennessee a week earlier; her lawyers said she later woke and began speaking.
