Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
SCHEDULED EXECUTIONS
Tonight, October 7, 2026, the State of Texas executed Jamaal Howard for killing clerk Vickie Swartout while robbing a gas station in 2000 in Silsbee, Texas (Hardin County). He was 20 at the time and spent more than half of his life on death row.
Read his last words, in which he apologized to the Swartout family and thanked his own family and friends.
Mr. Howard was the first person to face execution since the horribly botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee on September 30, 2026. Ms. Pike survived two lethal doses of pentobarbital, the same drug used in executions in Texas. On October 6, her attorneys reported that she is now conscious and speaking but remains hospitalized in critical condition.
Attorneys for Mr. Howard sought to stop the execution based on concerns about Texas’s use of pentobarbital as well as longstanding claims that Howard has an intellectual disability.
Both the Supreme Court of the United States and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) refused to stop the execution. Mr. Howard had asked the CCA to intervene after the Texas Department of Criminal Justice refused to disclose critical information about the efficacy and potency of the drug it intended to use in his execution. His attorneys asserted the stay would give them time to access and evaluate the agency’s records to ensure the drug has not degraded.
Additionally, counsel for Mr. Howard asked Texas Governor Greg Abbott to exercise his constitutional authority to issue a 30-day reprieve given the unanswered questions about the lethal injection drug. The Governor did not respond to that request.
WHO WE ARE
The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP) is the only statewide grassroots advocacy organization dedicated solely to ending the death penalty in Texas. Together with local, state, and national partners, TCADP is working to reduce use of the death penalty in Texas and, ultimately, end this arbitrary, irreversible, and unfair punishment.
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TEXAS DEATH PENALTY FACTS
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