A Texas man scheduled to be put to death Wednesday for fatally shooting a convenience store clerk in 2000 will be the first person executed in the United States since a botched attempt last week on a death row inmate in Tennessee.
The man, Jamaal Howard, 46, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 2001 in the killing of Vickie Swartout, 42. Mr. Howard was 20 when he shot Ms. Swartout, who was working at a convenience store in southeast Texas, and stole $114,000 from the cash register and a carton of cigarettes.
Mr. Howard is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday at about 6 p.m. Central time, but his lawyers have asked Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas to delay the execution by 30 days while they wait for more information on the drug that will be used in the execution. Texas uses pentobarbital for lethal injections, the same drug used in the failed execution last week of Christa Pike in Tennessee.
Lawyers for Mr. Howard said they had asked the Texas Department of Criminal Justice what drug they planned to use on Mr. Howard and for details on where it had been stored. The department has not shared those details with Mr. Howard’s lawyers, instead asking the Texas attorney general whether that information must be disclosed.
“We do not ask you to decide anything about Mr. Howard’s case other than this: that he should not be executed with a drug whose history the state has refused to let his lawyers see, within days of the same drug failing in another state,” Mr. Howard’s lawyers wrote in a letter to Mr. Abbott.
Lawyers for Mr. Howard said they filed a motion with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday asking the court to stay Mr. Howard’s execution out of concern that the injection could be botched, as it was for Ms. Pike.
As of Tuesday, Ms. Pike, who survived two doses of a lethal injection last week, was conscious and speaking, her lawyers said. Ms. Pike was receiving medical care at a Nashville hospital, and her prognosis was unclear.
Lawyers for Mr. Howard have also filed petitions that are pending with the U.S. Supreme Court that argue Mr. Howard’s execution should be stayed because he has an intellectual disability.
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