Texas Executes Black Man After Botched Christa Pike Execution

Jamaal Howard became another Black man executed by Texas on Wednesday night, even as questions about the reliability of lethal injection intensified following Tennessee’s botched execution of Christa Pike, which left her alive after two doses of lethal drugs. Howard’s case, however, is part of a larger racial history surrounding capital punishment in Texas, where Black people have been disproportionately represented among those put to death.

Howard, 46, was executed for the 2000 killing of Vickie Swartout, a 42-year-old convenience-store clerk in Silsbee, Texas. He was 20 when he shot Swartout during a robbery, according to court records. Howard was sentenced to death in 2001.

His execution came just days after Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee halted the state’s remaining scheduled executions following Pike’s failed execution, according to NPR. Howard’s death also adds to Texas’ long history of executing Black people, with 209 Black people put to death since the modern death-penalty era began, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

The timing was striking. Pike survived after Tennessee officials administered two doses of pentobarbital during her Sept. 30 execution attempt, we previously told you. She continued breathing and was ultimately taken to a hospital, prompting Lee to pause the state’s remaining executions and order a review of its lethal-injection procedures.

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“Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective,” Lee said in a statement.

Howard was pronounced dead after being injected with a fatal dose of pentobarbital at the state prison in Huntsville. Leading up to his execution in Texas, his attorneys raised concerns about the state’s lethal injection protocols in the form of several appeals and motions to stay his execution. Courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, declined to intervene.

Unreliable drug supplies, inexperienced execution teams, and improperly placed IVs are factors that can turn a supposedly controlled procedure into a prolonged, chaotic ordeal, experts told CNN.

Texas has executed more people than any other state since the modern death-penalty era began around 1972. Howard’s execution continues that record at a moment when a failed execution in Tennessee has invited more questions than answers.

For Howard, the final chapter included an apology to Swartout’s family, followed by the same procedure that has ended hundreds of lives in Texas. “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.”