Texas set to execute man for fatally shooting a convenience store clerk during robbery in 2000
Howard’s lawyers say he is intellectually disabled, while prosecutors point to surveillance video and court records showing he shot Swartout during a robbery.
- Jamaal Howard is set to be executed on Wednesday in Texas by lethal injection for the 2000 fatal shooting of convenience store clerk Vickie Swartout, marking the nation's 30th execution this year.
- In the 2000 robbery, Howard fatally shot Swartout at a store in Silsbee, Texas; court records show the then-20-year-old Howard took $114 and a carton of cigarettes before fleeing.
- Surveillance video presented at trial captured Howard shooting Swartout, with the crime occurring in Silsbee, 161 kilometers northeast of Houston; Howard was convicted of capital murder.
- Howard's attorneys have filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing he is intellectually disabled; the state maintains he has not presented sufficient evidence to meet disability requirements.
- Texas has executed six people this year with two more scheduled after Howard, while Florida has carried out 16 executions, the most of any state following Tennessee's failed execution attempt involving Christa Pike.
35 Articles
35 Articles
Texas execution would be first in U.S. since Tennessee failure
By Ayden Runnels, The Texas Tribune October 7, 2026 A Texas death row inmate convicted of a fatal 2000 robbery could be the first person put to death in the country since a failed execution in Tennessee that has raised alarm over lethal injection. Jamaal Howard was 20 years old when he robbed a convenience…
If the execution of 46-year-old Jamaal Howard takes place as planned on Wednesday evening at Huntsville State Penitentiary (south), it will be the 30th since the beginning of the year in the United States, all carried out by lethal injection. He was sentenced to capital punishment for the murder in 2000 of 42-year-old Vickie Lee Swartout, employed by a supermarket. His final remedies being exhausted, his lawyers asked the governor, Greg Abbott, …
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