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AMERICANALMANAC (Lynn Jenkins) - Lawyers move to halt Texas execution after failed Tennessee lethal injection Wed Oct 7 18:42:50 2026

Lawyers for a Texas death row inmate moved to stop his lethal injection Wednesday, citing a failed Tennessee execution and claiming the state's pentobarbital may be degraded. Attorneys for Jamaal Howard filed a motion early Wednesday in the Court of Criminal Appeals in Texas seeking a stay of his scheduled execution by lethal injection, CBS […] The post Lawyers move to halt Texas execution after failed Tennessee lethal injection appeared first on American Almanac .

Lawyers for a Texas death row inmate moved to stop his lethal injection Wednesday, citing a failed Tennessee execution and claiming the state's pentobarbital may be degraded. Attorneys for Jamaal Howard filed a motion early Wednesday in the Court of Criminal Appeals in Texas seeking a stay of his scheduled execution by lethal injection, CBS News reported . They pointed to last week's attempted execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee, where she reportedly received two doses of pentobarbital and survived. Howard's lawyers argue Texas faces a similar risk with its own supply, and they also pressed an intellectual-disability claim already rejected by the state. Howard, 46, was convicted of capital murder in the 2000 killing of convenience store clerk Vickie Swartout in Silsbee, Texas. He was 20 at the time. If carried out, the execution would be Texas's seventh this year and the 30th nationwide in 2026. Robbery ended with a clerk shot in the chest Court records show Howard took $114 and a carton of cigarettes from the store. Swartout, 42, was shot once in the chest. Surveillance video was presented at trial. Howard has a separate appeal pending at the U.S. Supreme Court. His attorneys also argue he is intellectually disabled. A 2002 Supreme Court decision barred execution of intellectually disabled people, while leaving states some discretion in how they determine that status. The state has said Howard has not presented evidence that would meet the requirements. Texas officials did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday morning. Pike survived two doses and remains under guard Pike, 50, was hospitalized after the Tennessee attempt. As of Tuesday, her attorneys said she was awake and speaking. One of her lawyers, Steve Ferrell, told "CBS Mornings" on Monday that doctors were working to clear the pentobarbital from her body and that she was on a ventilator. Pike's attorneys said Tuesday she was "conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care." "Her prognosis remains unclear," they said, adding that "at a minimum" they "expect a long recovery." They also stated that "despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed." Tennessee's Republican governor, Bill Lee, halted the one remaining execution in that state for the rest of the year. Howard's lawyers claim Texas drugs are past their dates Howard's attorneys requested information about the lethal dose of pentobarbital the Texas Department of Criminal Justice planned to use. They say the department asked the state attorney general for an opinion on whether it had to disclose that information, despite what they describe as a years-long practice of doing so. The attorney general's opinion is not expected until after Wednesday, they argue, leaving Howard unable to challenge whatever decision the state makes on releasing the details. In the motion, his lawyers wrote there is "a similar risk" that "Texas's execution drugs are likewise degraded, as they are far past the original beyond-use dates that the pharmacopeia allows for drugs of this kind." "There is a similar risk," the filing stated, "that Texas's execution drugs are likewise degraded, as they are far past the original beyond-use dates that the pharmacopeia allows for drugs of this kind." Texas has already carried out six executions this year, with two more scheduled after Howard. Florida leads the nation with 16 so far this year. Separately, former Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, has an execution date of Oct. 3 and is set to die by firing squad, the first military execution since 1961. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said late Monday the plan was recommended by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and approved by President Trump. A photo of Howard provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is dated Oct. 28, 2022. Last-minute claims about another state's drugs do not erase a murder conviction built on evidence, including surveillance video, or the fact that a store clerk was killed for cash and cigarettes. Justice for Vickie Swartout has already waited a quarter century. The post Lawyers move to halt Texas execution after failed Tennessee lethal injection appeared first on American Almanac .