Texas carries out first execution in US since Christa Pike’s botched lethal injection

The 46-year-old was administered pentobarbital, the same drug used in Pike's attempted execution in Tennessee.

Asked by the warden if he had a final statement before the execution, Howard apologised profusely to some members of his victim’s family, who watched through a window just feet from the death chamber.

Lawyers representing Howard filed two requests to stop the execution, arguing to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that the drug posed similar risks to Pike's botched execution.

Representatives for Howard raised concerns about the quality of the drugs, claiming they were "degraded" and "far past the original beyond-use dates".

However, the court denied the stay requests without elaboration.

His legal team also sought to block the execution by arguing to the US Supreme Court that Howard was intellectually disabled.

Jamaal Howard was executed

TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE

However, the state told the court that Howard's lawyers did not present sufficient evidence to show he meets the requirements for such a claim.

Texas has executed six people so far this year, with two more lethal injections scheduled later this year.

Florida has carried out 16 executions so far this year, the most of any state.

The majority of states that allow executions use lethal injection as their primary method.

Pike, sentenced to death for a 1995 murder, awoke "angry and confused" in a hospital this week with a long recuperation ahead after surviving Tennessee's attempt to execute her.

In a case which has ignited a global debate about capital punishment, the 50-year-old was taken from the execution chamber to a Nashville hospital, unconscious, critically ill and with severe arm injuries.

As late as Monday, her lawyers believed Pike was brain dead and that life support would be removed the next day.

However, much to their shock, Pike woke up and began talking, with Randall Spivey, one of her lawyers, telling reporters: "She is very aware that the state tried to execute her."

Randy Spivey said Pike is 'angry and confused' about the situation

REUTERS

Pike remains very sick and shackled to her hospital bed, facing a long road to recovery, her lawyers said.

She cannot swallow or eat, has pneumonia, cannot move her "tremendously swollen" hands or arms, and it is unclear if she will regain her lost mobility, they said.

Pike is the first person known to have survived a "completed execution attempt" in the US, her lawyers say, calling it a violation of the Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments.

Her lawyers are unexpectedly continuing their litigation against state officials, seeking to pierce the secrecy that normally surrounds execution procedures in Tennessee and other states.

Pike is the second case of a failed execution in Tennessee this year and has ultimately led to the resignation of Tennessee’s prison chief, Frank Strada.

Republican Governor of Tennessee Bill Lee has suspended all further executions in Tennessee for the remainder of the year and ordered an independent review into what happened.

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 following the gruesome murder of Ms Slemmer, whom she met at a job training facility.

Along with the aide of her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, she stabbed and beat the 19-year-old to death on the University of Tennessee's Agricultural campus.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has suspended further executions in Tennessee

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Shipp, who was 17 at the time, received a life sentence with the possibility of parole owing to his age.

Investigators said the pair carved a satanic pentagram into Slemmer's chest, and Pike kept a piece of her victim's skull as a trophy.

She was anticipated to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than two centuries.

Whether there will be another execution attempt is unknown, but no order is currently in process.

Her attorneys are continuing their efforts to prevent a second execution attempt.