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Texas to execute Jamaal Howard, first in US since Tennessee’s botched attempt
CNN • • general
Key Points:
- Jamaal Howard, convicted of fatally shooting convenience store clerk Vickie Swartout during a 2000 robbery in Texas, is scheduled for lethal injection on Wednesday, marking the 30th execution in the US this year.
- The execution will use pentobarbital and is the first scheduled since Tennessee's failed execution attempt of Christa Pike, who was reported awake and speaking during treatment following the incident.
- Howard's attorneys claim he is intellectually disabled and argue for a halt to the execution, while the state maintains he has not met the legal criteria for such a claim; his appeal to the US Supreme Court is pending.
- Texas has executed six people so far in 2024, with two more executions scheduled after Howard's.
- The case against Howard included surveillance footage showing the shooting, and he was 20 years old at the time of the crime, which involved stealing $114 and cigarettes.
