A 46-year-old US man was executed by lethal injection Wednesday, officials said, the first to be carried out since the botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee one week earlier.
The execution of Jamaal Howard in Texas, who was sentenced to death for killing a store clerk during a 2000 robbery, was the 30th to take place in the United States so far this year.
The court ordered state corrections officials to preserve all evidence related to the botched execution, including medical supplies, waste, and audio and video recordings.
Pike’s fate revived debate over capital punishment in the United States.
Lee suspended executions in Tennessee pending an independent investigation, and the state’s prison chief resigned.
Tennessee’s correction department has maintained that it followed established protocol.
The state of Texas carried out an execution by lethal injection later Wednesday, the first in the United States since the attempt to put Pike to death.
Jamaal Howard was sentenced to death for killing a store clerk during a 2000 robbery.
His lawyers had sought to have his execution postponed, citing Pike’s case, but he was pronounced dead at 8:03 pm local time (0103 GMT Thursday).
“I’m sorry for what happened; I wish you could learn to forgive me one of these days,” Howard said in his last statement before being put to death.
The Death Penalty Information Centre, which publishes data and analysis on capital punishment in the United States, said Pike was the first inmate to survive after being injected with lethal doses of execution drugs.
Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend beat and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer at a job training camp.
Pike would have been the first woman put to death by the state of Tennessee in more than 200 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre.
Excluding Pike’s failed execution, there have been 29 executions in the United States this year, which have all been carried out by lethal injection.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.
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