Texas Carries Out First Execution Since Botched Lethal Injection Of Christa Pike

TJ Holmes (0:02)

Hey there, folks, it is Thursday, October 8th, Texas.

Showed Tennessee last night how it's done. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. One week after that botched execution in Tennessee robes, Texas was using the same method last night to execute somebody, and it worked.

Amy Robach (0:25)

Yeah, and everybody was holding their breath because this was, and yes, it is the first execution since the botched execution of Christa Pike. It happened to fall exactly on the one week anniversary. And yes, it just so happens that Texas uses the exact same single dose method of pentobarbital that Tennessee used. Yeah, right.

TJ Holmes (0:52)

I mean, it could have been in Alabama. This one could have been in Florida, where they use different methods, but we happen to have one using the exact same method. We had reason to be holding our breath last night.

Amy Robach (1:01)

And if we were holding our breaths, I can't imagine what Jamaal Howard must have been feeling knowing. And we know that he was briefed on what happened to Christa Pike. We heard from his spiritual advisor who made the decision to explain to him what happened to Christa. And I don't know, we've talked about whether or not that was the right call, because can you imagine if he didn't have knowledge of that before, he was told of it, now that's in your head, now you're thinking that the entire time, not am I going to die, but it's whether or not I will, and how much will it hurt, and how long will it take?

TJ Holmes (1:37)

Yeah, and am I going to be mutilated in some way in this?

Well, he was his spiritual advisor, we talked about this yesterday, was the one who said that Jamaal Howard said to him, well, it doesn't work, they just shoot me in the head. And they talk about this man, Jamaal Howard, having mental disabilities, and his IQ was around 70 And his spiritual advisor even mentioned that he didn't really fully even understand necessarily, what the process was and how it worked. He thought maybe they could just pull out a gun and shoot him in the head. This was all just a mess in a lot of ways from a horrific crime from 26 years ago, but last night, Rose, we went through another ceremony, if you will, in this country, and this one worked, but it did come with, I guess, drama because of a delay.

Amy Robach (2:22)

Yes, we were, as many people were, keeping our eye on this, and he was expected or he was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Central time there in Texas. But that was 7 p.m. our time, and by 8 p.m. our time still, I saw you just constantly hitting refresh on the computer screen trying to see if the execution had gone forward or if it had even begun at that point.

TJ Holmes (2:48)

There was no information for a while, and then stuff started trickling out, and it was limited information. There was a local Dallas affiliate that finally got hold of some information, and the attorney at least had said that there was, Supreme Court was still looking into it.

And Robes, you can't go forward and execute a guy that the Supreme Court might, then later you find out they ruled to stop the execution, so they had to sit and wait, and there were several issues they had before the Supreme Court.

And so, that was the delay.

Amy Robach (3:19)

Yes, the first one was the aforementioned intellectual disability, and so with an IQ of 70, and certainly from the beginning, even beforehand, he was known to have a limited mental capacity. He was mentally childlike, the way he's been described.

TJ Holmes (3:38)

And look, that was the argument before the whole Christa Pike stuff. They were trying to make this argument in court for a long time, that this is someone you cannot execute. The Supreme Court has made rulings on executing somebody with a mental disability. And they have even toyed around with an exact IQ score, Rose, but folks can't agree on what it is.

Amy Robach (3:58)

Which test and what's the score?

TJ Holmes (4:00)

Should you take the average of all the scores? All that stuff where they say he had a 70 So anyway, they made that argument. That one didn't work last night. It hadn't worked previously. But Rose, they had a new argument they can make after what happened to Christa Pike.

Amy Robach (4:12)

Not surprising, yes. Concerns over the method, concerns over lethal injection. His attorneys were asking even just for a delay, a month-long delay for the state of Texas to be transparent about the drugs or the drug because it's just one. Yes, the pentobarbital. But where it came from, what its expiration date, all of those things, they wanted those questions answered or at least examined before they went through with the execution.