Texas carries out first US execution since Christa Pike's botched lethal injection

File photo: Texas man executed for killing convenience store clerk in 2000

Texas executed Jamaal Howard, 46, on Wednesday, making him the first person put to death in the US since the botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee last week.Howard was pronounced dead at 8.03 pm after receiving a lethal dose of pentobarbital, a sedative, at the state prison in Huntsville.His lawyers had sought to halt the execution, arguing that Texas faced similar risks because it was using the same lethal injection drug involved in Pike’s failed execution. Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital and later said her arms felt as though they were going to explode as she was administered the drug.“Texas should not be eager to follow in Tennessee’s footsteps,” Howard’s lawyers argued in a motion filed before the Texas court of criminal appeals.The court rejected the request for a stay and later denied a second attempt to stop the execution over concerns about the drug. Both decisions came without explanation. The US Supreme Court also rejected a late appeal on Wednesday without comment.Howard was the sixth person executed in Texas this year and the 30th person put to death across the US in 2026. Two more lethal injections are scheduled in Texas.Howard was convicted of capital murder in 2001 for robbing a convenience store and fatally shooting 42-year-old store clerk Vickie Swartout.

Before the execution, Howard apologised to members of Swartout’s family, who watched from a viewing room just feet from the death chamber.“I wish that you accept my apology and I wish for your forgiveness,” he said. “I’m sorry for what happened. I wish you can learn to forgive me one of these days.”His lawyers had also argued that Howard was intellectually disabled at the time of the crime and therefore ineligible for the death penalty under a 2002 US Supreme Court ruling.Howard’s lawyers cited Christa Pike’s case in their final appeal, arguing that Texas’ execution drugs could also have degraded because they were being used beyond their original beyond-use dates allowed under pharmaceutical standards.The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had declined a request to halt Howard’s execution last week.