Death Penalty News

Florida state officials executed 74-year-old Harold Gene Lucas by lethal injection on Tuesday evening, concluding a 50-year legal saga stemming from the 1976 murder of a 16-year-old girl in Bonita Springs. STARKE, Fla. -- A man convicted of killing a teenage girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends was put to death Tuesday in the first of three executions planned this month in Florida. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, authorities said. He was sentenced to death for the 1976 shooting attack on Jill Piper and the wounding of her friends, Richard Byrd Jr. and Terri Rice.

MIAMI (AP) — A Florida man convicted of fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends is set to be executed Tuesday in the first of three lethal injections scheduled this month in the state. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, is set to receive a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke starting at 6 p.m. He would be the 14th prisoner put to death this year in Florida, and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has already signed death warrants for two more executions set for later this September.

D4vd is being represented by a public defender after his lawyers withdrew. LOS ANGELES -- Singer D4vd is now being represented by a public defender after his lawyers withdrew from his case Monday ahead of his second arraignment on murder and other charges connected to the death of a 14-year-old girl whose dismembered body was found in the trunk of his Tesla.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 29 August 2026: Yavar Alizadeh, Hossein Khalilian, Mojtaba Vahedi and Davod Tarkhan were executed in a group hanging in Tabriz Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, four men were hanged in Tabriz Central Prison on 29 August 2026. Two of the men were sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for separate murders by the Criminal Court. Their identities have been established as Yavar Alizadeh, a 28-year-old welder, and Hossein Khalilian, a 40-year-old florist. Yavar was arrested four years ago, and Hossein was arrested for the murder of his cousin seven years ago.

Singer D4vd is set to be arraigned on charges including murder in downtown Los Angeles on Monday in connection with last year's killing of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez as the high-profile case progresses to a trial. The 21-year-old, whose real name is David Anthony Burke, has previously pleaded not guilty to the charges. LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman is set to speak to reporters after the hearing. Hochman has previously stated that his office is working to determine whether it'll pursue the death penalty should Burke be convicted.

According to rights groups' claims, more than 500 people have been killed by the regime since the protests erupted in January. Ten individuals accused of participating in the January protests have been sentenced to death, while another six received prison sentences of up to 25 years, according to Iranian media reports on Sunday. The sentences were handed down by Judges Morteza Barati and Mohammadreza Tavakoli of Branch 1 of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court, according to the Iran Human Rights Society, an independent advocacy group and information network.

South Korean prosecutors have asked the court to sentence 23-year-old Jang Yun-gi to death. He is accused of murdering 17-year-old schoolgirl Lee Chae-won in the city of Gwangju.  The Gwangju District Court is due to announce its verdict in the case on September 30, Korea Herald reports. Details of the charges According to the prosecution, on May 5, Jang attempted to abduct Lee Chae-won in order to sexually assault her and then fatally stabbed her as she was returning home. 

Iranian authorities have executed at least two prisoners, identified as Shafi Shokati and Ali Zibaei, at Shiraz Central Prison (Adelabad Prison) and Semnan Central Prison. The two men had been sentenced to death in separate cases involving murder and drug-related charges. According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Shafi Shokati, a 39-year-old Baloch man and father of four, was executed at Shiraz Central Prison at dawn on August 24, 2026.

The president has raised the possibility that some of the fires may have been criminally set and ordered authorities to investigate their causes and identify those responsible. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has ordered amendments to the country’s penal code to allow the death penalty to be carried out against people convicted of deliberately setting forest fires, after a wave of devastating blazes killed 12 people and caused extensive damage across the country.

The court’s decision came a little more than two months after Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita asked the justices to schedule Weisheit’s execution. State attorneys argued Weisheit had exhausted his state and federal appeals, had no active stay of execution, and could lawfully be put to death. The inmate’s attorneys opposed setting a date, saying they needed more time to pursue available legal proceedings and possible executive clemency. The defense additionally pointed to public records that it said showed the Indiana Department of Correction lacked the drugs needed to conduct an execution and had no lawful source from which to obtain them.

OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has scheduled the execution of Air Force veteran and longtime death row prisoner Jim Pavatt for Nov. 12, as his attorneys continue to challenge his conviction and contend that prosecutors relied on false arguments, disputed forensic evidence and an alleged confession they later described as bogus. Pavatt, who served nearly 22 years in the Air Force and rose to the rank of master sergeant, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2001 killing of Rob Andrew in Oklahoma City. His execution is scheduled for the day after Veterans Day.

The ruling throws another wrench into the long-running death penalty case involving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the deadliest U.S. terrorist strikes. A U.S. military judge has thrown out Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's 2007 confession to FBI agents about his alleged lead role in the 9/11 attacks, ruling that it wasn’t given voluntarily and can’t be used against him at trial. The Aug. 28 ruling by the trial judge, Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Schrama, throws yet another wrench into the long-running death penalty case on the eve of the 25th anniversary of America’s deadliest terrorist strike that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Iranian authorities have executed at least seven prisoners, including a woman who had been subjected to forced marriage, two Gilak men and a Kurdish man, across prisons in Khorramabad, Sari, Rasht, Yazd and Isfahan. The prisoners, Arezou Rostad, Mostafa Vosoughi, Masoud Nemati, Esmaeil Ajami, Hedayat Jamalzadeh, Emad Sheikhi and Amir Danaei, had been sentenced to death in separate murder and drug-related cases. According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Mostafa Vosoughi, a 27-year-old Kurdish man from Rivasan village in Delfan (Nurabad) County, was executed at Khorramabad Central Prison at dawn on August 26, 2026. He had been arrested three years earlier on a murder charge and subsequently sentenced to death.

A U.S. air ‌force judge on Wednesday ordered Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, to face trial before a military tribunal in June 2028, along with three co-defendants. The trial-scheduling order entered by the air force's Lt.-Col. Michael Schrama ​marked the latest milestone in a military prosecution beset by ​two decades of legal deadlock surrounding the four detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia prison officials plan to execute a man next month who was convicted of fatally shooting two real estate agents in Atlanta’s suburbs more than two decades ago. Stacey Humphreys, 53, was convicted of malice murder in the 2003 killings of 33-year-old Cyndi Williams and 21-year-old Lori Brown. He is set to receive a lethal injection at the state prison near Jackson at 7 p.m. on Sept. 16, according to the Department of Corrections. Humphreys would be the first person executed in Georgia this year. The death penalty in the state has largely been tied up in litigation over an agreement related to the coronavirus pandemic that defense lawyers contend temporarily shields many death row residents from execution. The last execution in the state was in March 2024.

Iran allegedly plotted to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s eldest son, Yair, while he was living in South Florida, Newsmax reported on Wednesday, citing a US law enforcement source familiar with the matter. Israeli intelligence learned of the alleged plot in December and alerted US authorities, according to the source. Iranian operatives were believed to be in the Miami area and to have conducted surveillance of Yair Netanyahu’s home and movements. The 35-year-old, who lived in Hallandale Beach and was accompanied by an Israeli security detail, was reportedly instructed to leave immediately. He departed without collecting his belongings and returned to Israel, where he now lives.

A court in Iran has sentenced Leila Abolhassani, a 43-year-old mother of two teenage daughters detained during the January protests in the central city of Shahin Shahr, to death on charges of “waging war against God,” a source familiar with her case told Iran International. The source said Abolhassani was only filming a supermarket fire when she was arrested on the evening of January 8. Branch 5 of Isfahan’s Revolutionary Court nevertheless sentenced her to death on charges of participating in setting fire to the store. Abolhassani, who worked as a nail technician, was transferred following her arrest to Dowlatabad Prison in Isfahan, where she has been held for more than seven months.

Hossein Nazari, a 25-year-old citizen arrested during the January protests, has been sentenced to death by Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Mashhad. HRANA news agency reported on Wednesday, August 26, that the verdict was handed down in July and that Nazari is currently being held in Mashhad’s Vakilabad Prison. The court charged him with “communicating with hostile states and groups” and “assembly and collusion to commit crimes against national security.”  No details have been provided regarding the specific evidence cited by the court, the underlying acts supporting these charges, Nazari’s access to independent legal representation, or the legal proceedings of his trial.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a death warrant for Curtis. W. Beasley, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1998 for beating a Dundee woman to death with a hammer three years earlier. Beasley's execution by lethal injection is scheduled for Sept. 29, according to the warrant signed by DeSantis on Aug. 26. Since his conviction, Beasley, 77, of Haines City has maintained his innocence. The jury that recommended the judge impose a death sentence was not unanimous.