Deaths in Custody
Executed

Jamaal Howard

46 years old · died October 7, 2026 · state prison in Huntsville, Walker County, Texas

Jamaal Howard, 46, was executed by lethal injection of pentobarbital at the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas, on October 7, 2026, and was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m. Before the injection he apologized to members of the victim's family and said he loved his friends and family, and his cousin Brian Howard traveled to the prison to be with him. A Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson said he made small talk with officers on the drive to the unit. His attorneys objected that he is intellectually disabled and that the pentobarbital posed risks like those seen in the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee a week earlier, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt the execution, and the state said his lawyers had not presented evidence of intellectual disability.

Cause of death, as reported: Executed by the state. His lawyers argued he was intellectually disabled and that the pentobarbital posed risks after a failed execution in Tennessee.

Reported by: Texas Department of Criminal Justice (the agency that held him); Associated Press (reporters).

News reports (16)

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