Tennessee death-row inmate Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital on September 30 when her execution failed. Eight days later, on the evening of October 7, Texas used the same drug to execute Jamaal Howard, who was pronounced dead — the first execution in the United States since Pike's case.
Howard, 46, was sentenced to death for fatally shooting convenience-store clerk Vickie Swartout during a 2000 gas-station robbery in Silsbee, Texas. He became the seventh inmate executed in Texas this year and the 30th in the nation.
According to documents compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center, both Tennessee and Texas require syringes prepared with a 100 ml solution containing 5 grams of pentobarbital. Witnesses said Pike was given two doses. Texas has not disclosed how many doses Howard received.
When the drug was administered to Pike, witnesses said she began snoring and moaning but kept breathing. She was rushed to a Nashville hospital, intubated and placed on a ventilator. Her lawyers announced Tuesday she was awake and speaking — what they called a "medically unprecedented" recovery after attorneys believed she had been brain dead Monday night.
Howard, by contrast, took a couple of breaths and gasped, the AP reported, before making snoring sounds that grew quiet within 30 seconds. He was pronounced dead 19 minutes later. Before the execution, he apologized to Swartout's family, who watched from a viewing room: "I wish that you accept my apology... I wish you can learn to forgive me one of these days."
After Pike's failed execution, Howard's attorneys asked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for a 30-day reprieve to examine when the pentobarbital was purchased, how it was stored and what testing it had undergone. "Texas should not be eager to follow in Tennessee's footsteps," they argued in court filings. Abbott's office did not respond.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied a stay on October 7 without issuing an opinion, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene later in the day. Howard's lawyers also argued the drugs were "degraded" and "far past the original beyond-use dates," and unsuccessfully claimed he was intellectually disabled. Prosecutors countered that the defense had not presented evidence meeting the standard for such a claim.
Pike's legal team said executioners tried at least seven needles to establish IV access, one of which was "bent in a 90-degree angle" when removed. Her attorneys blame blown veins that let pentobarbital seep into soft tissue instead of her bloodstream. A judge granted an emergency motion ordering Tennessee to preserve execution evidence.
After waking, Pike's lawyers said her first words were "'where am I?' and 'who are you?'" She remains "angry and confused," they said, cognitively impaired and unable to swallow. Before the execution she had talked with the execution team about where they should try to insert the IV lines.
Gov. Bill Lee has halted Tennessee's remaining executions for the year and ordered an independent review. Corrections Commissioner Frank Strada, whom Lee appointed in January 2023, will step down this month.
It was Tennessee's second botched execution in four months: in May, the execution of Tony Carruthers failed when the team could not establish the second IV line the protocol requires. Texas still has two more executions scheduled this year, and the lethal-injection method remains under national scrutiny.