Texas executes inmate after woman survived lethal injection

Less than a week after a failed execution left Christa Pike alive, the United States carried out another lethal injection: Jamal Howard, 46, was executed in Texas and became the first person put to death in America since the extraordinary incident in Tennessee.

Howard received an injection of pentobarbital, the same drug involved in the failed attempt to execute Pike, and was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m. at the Huntsville prison.

Pike's execution on September 30 ended in a highly unusual manner. The inmate received two doses of pentobarbital but remained alive. After the procedure failed, she was transferred to a hospital, later regained consciousness and even began speaking. The incident led to an investigation in Tennessee and a freeze on further executions in the state.

Against the backdrop of that incident, Howard's attorneys tried to halt the Texas execution. They raised questions about the quality and integrity of the state's pentobarbital supply and requested a 30-day delay to obtain additional information about the drug the state planned to use. According to them, it was difficult to ignore the fact that this was the same substance involved days earlier in the Tennessee failure.

Lethal injection is a legal method of execution in seven countries: the United States, China, Thailand, Guatemala, the Maldives, Nigeria and Vietnam. (Photo: Shutterstock)

But the requests were denied. Both Texas courts and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to stop the execution, and it proceeded as scheduled. Howard was the seventh person executed in Texas in 2026, and the 30th in the United States as a whole.

Howard was sentenced to death for the murder of Vickie Swearout, 42, during a robbery at a convenience store in Silsbee, Texas, in 2000. He was 20 years old at the time. According to trial materials, Howard shot Swearout in the chest, then fled the scene with $114 and a pack of cigarettes. Security cameras in the store recorded the incident and formed a central part of the evidence against him.

Legal battles continued even in the final hours before the execution. His attorneys argued, among other things, that Howard suffered from intellectual disability and was therefore ineligible for the death penalty. The final appeals were rejected, and the Supreme Court did not intervene.