Death Penalty News

The Iranian regime is increasingly using death sentences, corporal punishment, and judicial persecution against women—not only to silence dissent but also to intimidate a society demanding change. The Iranian regime has long viewed women as central to the country’s struggle for freedom—and therefore as central targets of repression. The nationwide uprising of 2022 fundamentally altered the political landscape, demonstrating that Iranian women were no longer merely participants in protest movements but among their principal organizers and symbols. Since then, the authorities have steadily intensified their campaign against women, expanding the use of executions, imprisonment, corporal punishment, and judicial intimidation.

Iranian authorities executed at least three prisoners, including two Turks, identified as Amrollah Dousti, Hojjat Khayat, and Yousef Bagheri, in Tabriz and Zanjan Central Prisons. Dousti and Khayat were executed on drug-related charges, while Bagheri was executed for “premeditated murder.” According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Dousti, 40, from Bandar Abbas and a father of two, and Khayat, 51, from Tabriz and a father of three, were executed in Tabriz Central Prison on Sunday, August 9, 2026.

Lebanon’s parliament on Tuesday abolished the death penalty, making it the first country in the Middle East to replace capital punishment with a sentence of life imprisonment with hard labour.  The majority of Lebanon's 128-member parliament voted in favour of ending the death penalty, with the exception of the parliamentary bloc of Hezbollah.  Justice Minister Adel Nassar called the abolition "historic," adding that the spectre of capital punishment had previously prevented Beirut from obtaining the extradition of suspects from countries where it has been outlawed.

Alabama is preparing to execute Jeremy Williams, who pled guilty to the 2021 rape and murder of five-year-old Kamarie Holland.  The execution is scheduled for Thursday (August 13) at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama.  Williams, who is 41, requested the death penalty and waived his right to appeal, making this the first execution in Alabama this year.

Kolthum Akbari, an Iranian woman widely dubbed the “Black Widow,” was convicted of serial murders of elderly men she married, often temporarily. Official accounts generally center on 11 murders (plus one attempted murder), though Akbari herself gave varying figures and investigations suggested she had many more marriages.  The sentencing occurred primarily in September 2025 in Mazandaran Province, with ongoing reporting and updates into 2026. The 56- to 59-year-old killer confessed to killing at least 11 elderly men after temporarily or officially marrying them; Iranian authorities have linked her to additional marriages and possible further victims.

DAMASCUS, Syria (DPN)— A Syrian court on Tuesday sentenced former President Bashar Assad and his younger brother, Maher Assad, to death in absentia for premeditated murder of multiple people including children; torture; arbitrary detention, and crimes against humanity committed during Syria’s conflict. The Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus also sentenced Atef Najib, Assad’s maternal cousin and former head of Political Security in the southern province of Daraa, to death. Najib appeared in court wearing a prisoner’s uniform and standing inside a cage as the judge read the sentence. The court ordered that Bashar and Maher Assad be pursued internationally.

The signatories plan to submit the petition, which was opened on July 20, to the district court ahead of a hearing on Aug. 31. More than 47,000 people have signed a petition calling for the death penalty for Jang Yun-gi, who allegedly murdered a high schooler in Gwangju, according to a local memorial advocacy group on Tuesday. The online petition, first posted on July 20, has garnered a total of 47,268 signatories as of Monday. The petition was prepared by a group with a name that translates roughly to Gwangju-Jeonnam Memorial Solidarity and the family of the 16-year-old girl who was killed.

Iranian authorities executed Marzieh Nayeri, a 24-year-old woman who had been forced into marriage as a child, at Qazvin Central Prison, also known as Choubindar Prison. She had been sentenced to death for the murder of her husband. According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Nayeri was executed at dawn on Aug. 8, 2026, at Qazvin Central Prison. Sources familiar with the case said that in late September 2021, when Nayeri was 18, a business associate of her husband named Alireza attempted to sexually assault her after consuming alcohol in the presence of her husband. Nayeri injured the man with a kitchen knife while defending herself and subsequently killed her husband. After four days in hiding, she sought refuge with her brother, who later turned her over to police.

Nearly 100 prominent Iranians, including artists and filmmakers, have been summoned by security agencies or judicial authorities after speaking out against a new wave of executions, particularly the public hanging of protesters in Isfahan, a rights activist said. More than 20 of those summoned were well-known film and television actors, civil rights activist Mehdi Mahmoudian reported Saturday on his Telegram channel Khabaraneha. The report said those targeted had been among public figures posting against the executions under the hashtag “No to executions.”

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued execution reprieves for three death row inmates on Friday. In a statement, DeWine said he issued reprieves for Keith LaMar, Scott Group, and Davel Chinn, all of whom were set to be executed early next year. LaMar was scheduled to be executed on Jan. 13, 2027. He was convicted of aggravated murder for the deaths of five inmates during a 1993 riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution in Lucasville. He received the death penalty for four of the killings. His new execution date is Jan. 13, 2030. Watch the latest NBC4 headlines in the video player above.

Stone tablets recount a corruption case so widespread that it became a capital offense in 480 CE. Archaeologists in western Turkey recently discovered a detailed account of 1,600-year-old tax fraud so brazen that ancient Rome made it a deadly offense. Initially believed to be funerary ode inscriptions, the Late Antiquity stone tablets actually provide vital missing information in a notably widespread corruption case that spanned more than a decade—and even implicated the estate of Emperor Valentinian III’s daughter, Placidia.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — The Tennessee Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request by a death row inmate to force state corrections officials to disclose whether the same physician involved in a failed execution attempt in May will be used when he is scheduled to be put to death on Aug. 13. The court rejected a legal request filed by attorneys for Darrell Hines, a death row inmate scheduled to be executed on Aug. 13, 2026. PREVIOUS COVERAGE | Tenn. court orders disclosure of execution physician identity in upcoming execution

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 6 August 2026: At least 71 people were executed in July 2026, including 36 for murder, 26 for drug-related offences, eight for security-related charges, and one for rape. Six protesters were amongst those executed in July.  In the first seven months of 2026, IHRNGO has recorded 444 executions, including 12 women, 17 foreign nationals, and 80 ethnic minorities. The 2026 executions also include 28 protesters (26 from the January protests and two from “Woman, Life, Freedom”), 13 political prisoners affiliated with banned opposition groups, and 12 espionage defendants.

County Attorney Brad Miller said Aug. 6 that the nature of the attack and both men's past criminal records meet the strict legal bar required for execution under Arizona law. FLORENCE, Ariz. - Pinal County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against two inmates accused of violently killing a fellow prisoner behind bars, officials announced Thursday. Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller filed a Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty against Pete Van Winkle and Tracy Hampton in connection with the fatal attack on Kenneth Thompson. 

Though many said they supported capital punishment, an almost equal number of people conceded they don't think it deters crime. (CN) — An eye for an eye, say the two-thirds of Americans who support punishing murderers with death, according to research published by Pew on Thursday. A little less than a third of Americans, 32%, oppose capital punishment entirely, standing in line with Gandhi's spin on the age-old aphorism, “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” “As the Trump administration and some states seek to expand the application of the death penalty, about two-thirds of Americans (66%) now favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, while nearly a third (32%) oppose it,” researchers wrote in the report.

WILMINGTON, Del. — More than three decades after Jermaine “Marlow” Wright was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in a case with no physical evidence tying him to the crime and evidence favorable to his defense withheld by prosecutors, a Delaware court has issued him a Certificate of Innocence and ordered his 1992 murder conviction expunged. The Death Penalty Information Center identified Wright as the 203rd person exonerated from death row in the United States since 1973 and the second person exonerated from Delaware’s death row. Superior Court Judge Calvin Scott issued the order July 23, according to the organization.

When people think about capital punishment, their attention is usually fixed on its two most visible moments, when a death sentence is handed down and an execution is conducted. But behind the scenes, many other moving parts must be in place for the death penalty system to function. Among the most important of them is the protocol that lays out the steps that must be followed when the state puts someone to death. If the protocol is sloppy or deficient, it will likely lead to problems in carrying out death sentences. Not surprisingly, problems with execution protocols are especially likely to arise when a state adopts a new execution method.

The public execution of two protesters in Isfahan has renewed calls for the German city of Freiburg to end its 25-year twinning with the Iranian city, with activists arguing the partnership lends legitimacy to a state punishing dissent with the death penalty. The demands follow the executions of Amirhossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi in Isfahan's Alikhani Square in late July. Witnesses reported clashes between security forces and people who gathered to protest the hangings. Freiburg, a university city in southwestern Germany, is the only municipality in the country to maintain a formal partnership with an Iranian city. Iranian activists have long argued that the arrangement, established in 2000, legitimizes the Islamic Republic despite its human rights record.

A Tennessee death row inmate and his chosen spiritual advisor have filed a federal lawsuit against the Tennessee Department of Correction, alleging state prison policies violate their religious rights by preventing a private confession before execution.  The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, does not challenge Tennessee’s authority to carry out executions. Instead, it asks whether condemned inmates have a constitutional and federally protected right to privately practice their faith before the state carries out a death sentence.  John Michael Bane has spent decades on Tennessee’s death row after a Shelby County jury convicted him of 1st-degree felony murder in the 1988 robbery and killing of 60-year-old Royce Frazier.