HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A Texas court on Wednesday refused to halt the execution of a man who fatally shot a convenience store clerk after his attorneys cited the failed lethal injection of Christa Pike in Tennessee.
The execution was scheduled to take place later Wednesday in Texas and would be the first in the U.S. since Pike survived the execution attempt last week.
Because Texas planned to inject the same drug used in Pike’s attempted execution - pentobarbital - attorneys for 46-year-old Jamaal Howard argued to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that the drug poses similar risks. They also raised concerns about the quality of the state’s execution drugs.
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The court denied the stay request without elaboration.
Pike’s lawyers are seeking more information about what went wrong after the 50-year-old woman survived two doses of pentobarbital on Sept. 30. She was unconscious for several days at a hospital but was awake and speaking by Tuesday.
“Texas should not be eager to follow in Tennessee’s footsteps; a stay would keep that from happening,” Howard’s attorneys argued in their filing.
Texas has executed six people so far this year, with two more lethal injections scheduled after Howard. He would become the 30th person executed nationwide in 2026.
Inmate remained ‘chatty’ during drive to the death chamber
On Wednesday, Howard was described as “chatty” during the 45-mile drive from the death row prison to the Huntsville Unit where executions are carried out, said Amanda Hernandez, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
“He made small talk with the officers through the whole trip,” she said.
Once inside the Huntsville prison, he was taken to a small holding cell near the death chamber and remained talkative.
“He was asking questions and was very engaged in the process,” Hernandez said.
A killing caught on surveillance video
Howard was convicted of capital murder in the 2000 killing of Vickie Swartout, 42, who was shot once in the chest during a store robbery. Evidence presented at the trial included the store’s surveillance video that showed Howard shooting Swartout.
Howard, who was 20 at the time, took $114 and a carton of cigarettes from the store in the small, rural town of Silsbee, about 100 miles northeast of Houston, according to court records.
His attorneys have argued that Howard is intellectually disabled and his execution should be halted. The state said that he has not presented evidence showing he meets the requirements for a claim of intellectual disability.
He has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution.
In 2002, the Supreme Court had barred the execution of intellectually disabled people. But it has given states some discretion in determining intellectual disability.
Motion to stay because of drugs
The motion filed early Wednesday in the Court of Criminal Appeals in Texas said Howard’s attorneys had filed requests for information about the lethal dose of pentobarbital that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice planned to use.
The attorneys said the department asked for a state attorney general opinion about whether it must disclose that information.
The Texas attorney general opinion is not expected to be returned until after Wednesday, meaning Howard can’t litigate whatever decision the state might make on releasing that information, they argued.
Texas officials did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday morning.
Executions in the U.S. this year
Florida has carried out 16 executions so far this year, the most of any state. Most states that allow executions use lethal injection as their primary method.
Tennessee’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee has halted the one remaining execution for the rest of the year.
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Stengle reported from Fort Worth, Texas.
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