Texas executes inmate in first US case since Christa Pike's botched lethal injections

Texas has executed an inmate in the first U.S. execution since Christa Pike’s botched execution last week.

A death row inmate, identified as Jamaal Howard, 46, was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday evening in Texas.

Howard’s attorney had asked a judge of a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to halt the execution, providing context to Pike’s failed execution attempt through lethal injections.

The Tennessee Correction Department officials administered Pike with two lethal injections of pentobarbital; she survived last Wednesday.

Howard, who was sentenced to death for fatally shooting convenience store clerk Vickie Swartout during a robbery in 2000, was administered pentobarbital.

However, the court tossed the requests by Howard’s attorneys without elaboration.

Texas has executed six people so far in 2026, with two more lethal injections scheduled later this year.

Pike, 50, regained consciousness on Tuesday, October 6, almost a week after her botched execution, and the very first words she reportedly uttered in the hospital were “‘Where am I?’ and ‘Who are you?’”

Her attorneys said she remains cognitively confused and is unable to move or swallow, claiming she has been brain dead as recently as Monday, October 5, 2026.

The latest update in Pike’s botched execution comes from a hearing on Wednesday, October 7, when a judge granted a motion filed by Pike’s attorneys that requires the state of Tennessee to save key evidence from the failed execution.