Texas set to execute man for fatally shooting a convenience store clerk during robbery in 2000

DALLAS - A Texas man who fatally shot a convenience store clerk is set to die by lethal injection on Wednesday in what would be the nation's 30th execution this year. [KSAT 12]

Jamaal Howard, a 46-year-old Texas man convicted of fatally shooting a store employee during an armed robbery, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Wednesday. His death would mark the 30th capital punishment carried out across the United States so far this year and represent Texas' seventh execution in 2024.

Howard was convicted of capital murder in the 2000 death of Vickie Swartout, a 42-year-old convenience store clerk in Silsbee, a small community roughly 100 miles northeast of Houston. During the robbery, Swartout was shot once in the chest. Security camera footage from the store proved pivotal in his conviction, providing video evidence of the shooting. Howard, who was 20 years old at the time of the crime, fled the scene with $114 in cash and a package of cigarettes.

The execution comes as the first scheduled U.S. capital punishment since Tennessee's recent failed lethal injection attempt involving inmate Christa Pike. Following the complications in that case, Pike's legal team reported this week that she remained conscious and responsive while receiving medical attention at a hospital.

Howard's legal team has mounted a challenge to his execution, asserting that he has intellectual disabilities that should exempt him from the death penalty. Federal law has prohibited executing individuals with documented intellectual disabilities since a 2002 Supreme Court ruling. However, the decision granted states considerable latitude in establishing their own criteria for determining such disabilities. State prosecutors countered that Howard has failed to submit sufficient documentation satisfying the standards for such a claim. A petition to the U.S. Supreme Court remains pending.

Two additional executions are scheduled to follow Howard's in Texas this year. Nationally, Florida leads all states with 16 executions carried out so far in 2024. Across jurisdictions permitting capital punishment, lethal injection has become the predominant execution method.