Haunting final words of first death row inmate to be executed since Christa Pike’s botched attempt
Jamaal Howard used his final words to apologise to his victim’s family before telling the prison warden he was ‘ready’.
Howard, 46, was pronounced dead at 8:03pm local time after receiving a fatal dose of pentobarbital at Texas’s Huntsville Unit.
He was sentenced to the death penalty for the 2000 murder of Vickie Swartout during an attempted robbery.
Howard, who was 20 at the time, fatally shot store clerk Swartout in the chest before taking $114 and a carton of cigarettes, court documents show.
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Once in the chamber, Howard issued a final statement apologising to the family of Swartout.
“I wish that you accept my apology and I wish for your forgiveness,” he said, shortly before the injection got underway.
“I’m sorry for what happened. I wish you can learn to forgive me one of these days.”
He then said to the warden: “Warden, that’s it. I’m ready Warden.”
Prior to being executed, a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson said Howard had been ‘chatty’ with staff during the 45-minute journey from death row to the Huntsville Unit where executions are carried out.
Spokesperson Amanda Hernandez said: “He made small talk with the officers through the whole trip.”
Once inside, he was taken to a holding cell inside the death chamber.
“He was asking questions and was very engaged in the process,” Hernandez said.
Earlier today, his legal team tried unsuccessfully to have the execution blocked, claiming Howard was intellectually disabled and had a history of mental illness.
At his trial, psychiatrists found that Howard had an IQ in the 65-70 range, and described him as functioning at the level of an 11 or 12-year-old.
In an article published in The Texas Observer ahead of the execution, Howard’s spiritual advisor Reverend Jeff Hood claimed that the inmate ‘didn’t understand how executions were carried out’ and that he was not aware of the Pike case.
Hood wrote that when he informed him about Pike and explained that the drugs hadn’t worked during her execution, Howard replied: “I guess if the drugs don’t work, they’ll just shoot me in the head.”
The Reverend went on to say that he then explained to Howard that executions didn’t work like that but claimed he ‘literally had no understanding of the protocol by which he was going to be executed or what would happen if something went wrong’.
His lawyers also raised concerns about the use of pentobarbital - the same drug that had been used in Pike’s execution attempt on 30 September.
One filing delivered to the court, read: “Ms. Pike survived two lethal doses of pentobarbital, the same drug used in executions in Texas, and she reportedly remains hospitalised in critical condition.
“When an execution goes wrong, one of the first questions anyone asks is whether the drug was what the State said it was.
“Tennessee’s own officials cannot yet answer that, and the answer lies in records: when the drug was bought, from whom, how it was stored, and what testing was done and when. Texas should not wait until after a failed execution to ask the same questions.
“We do not know why Ms. Pike’s execution failed, and we, specifically, do not know whether the failure was due to the pentobarbital’s being ineffective.”
In the wake of Pike’s failed attempt, the state of Tennessee announced it was halting all planned executions until an investigation had been carried out.
In a statement released shortly after the botched attempt, the Tennessee Department of Correction said it had followed ‘every step’ of the standard protocol.
"The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the state’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office," the statement said.
"The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility."
Claire Reid