Death Penalty News

The death penalty remains an option in California as local prosecutors defy Newsom’s clemency move (DPN) — Prosecutors across California have pledged to continue seeking the death penalty in future cases even after Governor Gavin Newsom announced mass commutations converting all 548 existing death sentences to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. This action, the largest such clemency in U.S. history, leaves the death penalty itself intact under state law. Voters have twice rejected measures to abolish it, and district attorneys in several counties argue that the severity of certain murders still warrants capital charges. They intend to pursue them where the facts support it, regardless of the governor’s decision on prior sentences.

Four prisoners, including an Afghan national, were executed at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj on Wednesday, November 4, 2026. All four had been sentenced to death under Iran’s qisas (retributive justice) laws on murder charges. According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, one of the executed prisoners was identified as Gol Agha Eskandari, an Afghan national. Eskandari had been convicted of murder following a dispute between neighbors in the Khorasan Square area of Tehran in July 2024 and subsequently sentenced to death.

This month marks 10 years since a record number of Nebraska voters turned out to weigh in on a controversial issue: whether the state should reinstate the death penalty. In 2015, the Nebraska Legislature abolished capital punishment, becoming the first conservative-leaning state to do so since North Dakota in 1973. But voters restored it in 2016. LB268 was the 38th bill of its kind. Sen. Ernie Chambers had introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty at the beginning of every legislative session since 1979. “Had not the conservative faction decided that it’s time for a change, there’s no way that what is happening today would be taking place,” Chambers said on the legislative floor in 2015.

California Governor Gavin Newsom announced today , November 5, 2026, that he is commuting the death sentences of all 548 people on the state’s death row, granting the largest mass clemency in American history. In his statement announcing the decision, Gov. Newsom said, “I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes all of us.”

Man convicted of 2004 killing is put to death in Florida’s 19th execution this year, tying a record Florida carried out a record-tying 19th execution of the year in an unusual instance of 3 states administering the death penalty on the same day. Jesse Guardado was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at a state prison in Starke. He had pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing 75-year-old Jackie Malone inside her Walton County home in 2004 before stealing her jewelry box, $80, and other valuables to buy drugs. The woman had helped him get a job and housing.

Alabama executes man convicted of 1991 double murder  The state of Alabama carried out the execution of 54-year-old Michael Shannon Taylor Thursday night for the 1991 murders of an elderly Etowah County couple, 35 years and 1 day after the crime.  Taylor, convicted in 1993 on 3 counts of capital murder, was sentenced to death unanimously by a jury for killing 83-year-old Ivan Ernest Moore and 79-year-old Lucille Moore inside their Gadsden home during a robbery. Taylor was 19 at the time. 

A Revolutionary Court in Tehran has sentenced social media activist Amirhossein Mousavi to death on charges of "corruption on earth" over his activity on X, his lawyer said Wednesday. In a post on X, Mousavi's lawyer, Reza Shafakhah, said his client had been sentenced over his online activity under the account name "James Bidin." The sentence was issued by Branch 15 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Abolghasem Salavati, who is under US, British and European Union sanctions over his role in human rights abuses.

OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — After the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board denied clemency for a high-profile death row inmate in Oklahoma, a local organization is protesting his execution. James Pavatt was sentenced to death for the 2001 murder of Rob Andrew, a 39-year-old Oklahoma City advertising executive and father of two. Evidence presented at Pavatt's trial showed that he began an affair with Andrew's wife, Brenda Andrew, in 2001. Prosecutors argued that the murder was especially cruel and that Pavatt killed Andrew for an $800,000 insurance policy.

An Indiana man who admitted killing his girlfriend's two children was executed early Thursday in the first of three lethal injections scheduled for the same day in the U.S. Jeffrey Weisheit killed the children, ages 8 and 5, by setting fire to his girlfriend's house in the Evansville area in 2010.  The remains of 8-year-old Alyssa Lynch and 5-year-old Caleb Lynch were recovered from the ruins of a fire at their home in the Evansville area. Alyssa’s body was in a closet. Caleb’s body was on a mattress, restrained with duct tape. A railroad flare was in his underwear, and another was under his body. The children’s mother, Lisa Lynch, was at work at the time. She was in a relationship with Weisheit, but it was breaking down, investigators said. Weisheit spent 13 years on death row after his conviction. Weisheit died at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. The lethal injection started just after midnight, and he was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m., according to Noelle Russell, ...

If all three executions are carried out as planned, it will be the second triple execution in the U.S. this year, reflecting an overall uptick in the death penalty since the beginning of 2025. Three states are planning to carry out a rare triple execution this week on Nov. 5. Indiana is set to execute Jeffrey Weisheit, 50, by lethal injection for the 2010 murders of his girlfriend's two children, 8-year-old Alyssa Lynch and her 5-year-old brother, Caleb. The children were burned alive in their home.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 3 November 2026: State media reported the executions of Amirhossein Maleki and Amirhossein Ebrahimi, two protesters sentenced to death in Isfahan’s “Alikhani Square” case, were executed in Isfahan Central Prison. Since 19 July, nine protesters, including two Afghan nationals, have been executed in connection with the case, which is marred by due process violations, including torture-tainted confessions and testimonies.

Indiana’s governor turned down a clemency request and says an execution planned for Thursday will go forward against a man who killed his girlfriend’s two children in 2010 Indiana's governor turned down a clemency request Monday and said an execution planned for this week would go forward for a man who set a fire that killed his girlfriend's two children in 2010. Gov. Mike Braun said he would follow the Indiana Parole Board's recommendation to let the death sentence stand for Jeffrey Weisheit. “The Indiana Department of Correction will continue preparations to carry out the court-ordered sentence of execution” Thursday, said Braun, a Republican.

The judiciary identified Amir Hossein Ebrahimi and Amir Hossein Maleki as “the main perpetrators.” Both were executed on Tuesday morning. ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iran on Tuesday executed two men accused of killing four police officers in Isfahan province during the nationwide January protests, the judiciary reported.  The suspects protested in a group, who were family members and acquaintances, and were allegedly armed with knives, machetes, and Molotov cocktails, according to the judiciary’s Mizan news agency.  

Editor's note: This story was translated from the original VOA Persian article. A U.S.-based rights organization says that Iran's Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence against a fruit seller convicted in connection with anti-government protests earlier this year. The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the media arm of the Human Rights Activists in Iran, reported Monday that the court reached the decision in the case against Arman Marefati. The group also said that two female protesters arrested in connection with the protests have been sentenced to a combined 44 years in prison.

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – 13 Australian men and boys detained in Iraqi prisons over alleged connections to ISIS could potentially face trial and the death penalty by hanging. Between January and February 2026, the US military transferred approximately 5,700 detainees, including around 2,200 foreigners from 65 different countries, from prisons in northeast Syria to al-Karkh Central Prison near Baghdad due to increasing instability in Syria. The detainees transferred from northeastern Syria to Iraqi custody earlier this year included the 13 Australian men and boys.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant Friday for inmate Ricardo Gonzalez, who killed a North Miami Beach police officer during a 1992 bank robbery. Gonzalez, 56, is one of four who robbed the Kislak National Bank of a cash box from a drive-thru teller. He is set to die by lethal injection Dec. 1 at Florida State Prison. With executions scheduled for Thursday and Nov. 19, Gonzalez is in line to be the 21st inmate executed by the state this year. Florida’s Department of Corrections conducted 19 executions last year, the most by the state for a single year since the U.S. Supreme Court ended a moratorium on executions in 1976.

A competent court issued a ruling confirming the charges against the three defendants and sentencing them to death by qisas (retribution) Saudi Arabia has executed three Saudi nationals convicted of murder in the Eastern Province on November 1, the Ministry of Interior announced. The three men were identified as Abdullah bin Malhaq bin Mohammed Al Marzouqi Al Buqami, Abdulmajeed bin Shabab bin Ghazi Al Kurizi Al Buqami, and Malik bin Abdullah bin Ali Al Barghash. Their victim was identified as Ahmed bin Ali bin Abdullah Sabie, also a Saudi national.

Iranian authorities have executed at least seven prisoners, including one Kurdish, one Lor, and three Turk prisoners, in Qazvin, Semnan, Zanjan, Karaj, and Nishapur prisons over four days. All seven had been sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder” or “drug-related offenses.” According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, authorities executed Esmail Moradvand, 64, a Lor from Dasht-e Azadegan in Khuzestan Province who lived in Qazvin, and Faramarz Seyfouri, 38, a Turk from Abhar in Zanjan Province, in Qazvin Central Prison on Wednesday, October 28, 2026. Both had been convicted of “drug-related offenses.” Moradvand was the father of four children, while Seyfouri had one child.

Tennessee says it followed its protocol when Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital. The failure lies in a method that needs medical skill that doctors are ethically barred from providing. Editor’s note: Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist and medical ethicist, has served as a medical expert for Christa Pike’s legal team, including providing expert testimony in her challenge to Tennessee’s execution protocol before the Sept. 30 execution attempt.