Accountability.
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Texas executed Jamaal Howard on Oct. 7, 2026, one week after a failed execution in Tennessee using the same drug, pentobarbital, raised new questions about whether the drug states use for lethal injections works as intended.
Howard, 46, was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m. at the Huntsville Unit after a single lethal dose of pentobarbital. He was the seventh person executed in Texas this year and the 30th in the United States, according to news reports.
The case
Howard was convicted of killing Vickie Swartout, a 42-year-old convenience store clerk, during a robbery in Silsbee in 2000, when he was 20 years old. He was sentenced to death in Hardin County.
In his final statement, Howard apologized to Swartout’s family, who watched through a window, and asked for their forgiveness. He told his family and friends that he loved them and said he was at peace.
The Tennessee failure
On Sept. 30, Tennessee tried to execute Christa Pike with pentobarbital. Pike was given two doses and survived, and she needed emergency medical treatment, according to news reports. Her attorneys said problems with the IV lines caused the drug to go into her tissue instead of her bloodstream.
What Howard’s lawyers argued
Howard’s attorneys asked the courts to stop the execution on two grounds:
- The drug. They argued that Texas’s pentobarbital carried the same risks seen in the Pike case and that the state’s supply may be degraded, saying the drugs were far past the original “beyond-use” dates set by pharmacy standards. They said they had requested information from TDCJ about the dose it planned to use.
- Intellectual disability. They argued that Howard is intellectually disabled, which would make his execution unconstitutional. The state said he had not presented evidence showing he met the legal requirements.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied the request without explanation, and the execution went forward.
Witnesses reported that Howard gasped and snored after the injection, and that all movement stopped within about 30 seconds.
Why it matters to families
Texas uses a single dose of pentobarbital for every execution and does not publicly disclose where it gets the drug. State law shields the identity of suppliers. Because of that secrecy, attorneys for people on death row have repeatedly challenged the drug’s age, storage and testing, and courts have generally refused to stop executions on those grounds.
Texas’s death row for men is at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, and executions take place at the Huntsville Unit. Families of people on death row can find more information on the TDCJ Death Row page, which lists scheduled executions.
Texas Prison News will continue to follow legal challenges to the state’s execution drug.