The Incredible Mind of Jamaal Howard

Jamaal Howard could not hold a sentence together. Doctors put his IQ between 65 and 70, diagnosed chronic schizophrenia and held him together with the largest dose of Haldol the state allows. On October 7, 2026, Texas strapped him to a gurney anyway.Jeff Hood sat across the glass from him in the weeks before. These essays were written in those weeks. An exhaustive account of the record Texas refused to read. A nationwide campaign that mailed coloring books to a judge. A refusal to launder what Jamaal did to Vickie Swartout when he was twenty. A eucharist of honey buns with Powerade in a death row visitation room. The last pieces were written after the chamber.Hood does not argue innocence. He argues that Texas measured a mind, found it gravely impaired and killed it. He argues that the courts hid behind procedure. He argues that God was behind the glass the whole time.The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood has been present as a spiritual advisor at fourteen executions. This is the record of the fourteenth.