October 07, 2026
Texas execution set for tonight: Jamaal Howard, 46, would be the first executed since Christa Pike's botched lethal injection
Headline card by The Night Desk
Texas execution set for tonight: Jamaal Howard, 46, would be the first executed since Christa Pike's botched lethal injection
October 7, 2026 — DEVELOPING. Texas is set to execute Jamaal Howard, 46, by lethal injection this evening — a move that would make him the 30th person executed in the United States this year and the first anywhere since Tennessee's botched attempt to execute Christa Pike last week.
The case
Howard was found guilty of capital murder in the 2000 killing of Vickie Swartout, 42, a convenience store clerk in Silsbee, Texas — a small rural town about 100 miles northeast of Houston. Swartout was shot once in the chest during a robbery. The store's surveillance video, shown at trial, captured Howard shooting her. He was 20 years old at the time and took $114 and a carton of cigarettes from the store, according to court records. He has spent more than 25 years on death row.
The last-minute legal fight
Howard's attorneys filed a stay request with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals early Wednesday, arguing that Texas planned to use pentobarbital — the same drug that failed in Pike's execution — and that the state had withheld information about the quality and sourcing of its execution drugs. The court denied the request without elaboration.
"Texas should not be eager to follow in Tennessee's footsteps; a stay would keep that from happening," Howard's attorneys had argued.
A separate claim — that Howard is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution under the Supreme Court's 2002 Atkins v. Virginia ruling — has been rejected at every level so far. His lawyers cite an IQ estimated at 65 to 70, schizophrenia, and a traumatic brain injury from being shot in the head at age 17. The state says he has not presented evidence meeting the requirements for such a claim. An emergency application to the U.S. Supreme Court was filed Monday and was awaiting action as the execution time approached. The Fifth Circuit denied a separate request for a stay on October 5.
The Pike shadow
The timing is impossible to ignore. On September 30, Tennessee gave Pike two doses of pentobarbital and failed to carry out the execution — she survived, was hospitalized, and was awake and speaking Wednesday. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has halted that state's remaining executions for the rest of 2026 and ordered a third-party review.
Texas has taken the opposite path. Texas has executed six people so far this year, with two more scheduled after Howard. Florida leads the nation with 16 executions this year.
What to watch
If neither the Supreme Court nor Gov. Greg Abbott intervenes, Howard would be moved to the execution chamber Wednesday evening. The Night Desk will update this article as the night develops.
Source: CNN / Associated Press. This is a developing story — details may change as official reports are released.
Source: CNN — read the original report
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