Death Penalty News

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.

The Legislative Yuan yesterday passed amendments to the Criminal Code significantly increasing penalties for drug-impaired driving, including raising the maximum prison term from three to five years and allowing capital punishment for repeat offenders who cause death within 10 years. The amendments passed with support from opposition lawmakers, who hold a majority in the legislature, following a joint motion by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) to separate penalties for drug-impaired driving from those for drunk driving.

Dr. Mark Fowler knew something was wrong after 45 minutes passed without word from the warden. In most cases, executions take no more than ten minutes. When he was summoned from his waiting room to the chamber next door, he saw 50-year-old Christa Pike, who’d received two lethal doses of pentobarbital that night, strapped to a gurney, gasping for air. “She’s not dead,” Fowler recalls the warden saying. “I thought, Well, in human beings there’s a spectrum of responses to medications and we’ll give it a few more minutes,” he says. Another half-hour passed. Fowler worried she might survive with irreversible brain damage. “She’s going to be in a permanent vegetative state with a quarter-million dollars in medical expenses.” He came back in and diagnosed her as comatose. The deputy commissioner ordered the execution to stop. Now, instead of taking part in Pike’s death, Fowler’s job was to bring her back to life.

Convicted murderer Christa Pike said Friday that she is in constant pain, a month after surviving a botched execution attempt in the US state of Tennessee. "There hasn't been a moment since that night when I haven't been in pain," Pike said in a statement released by her lawyers. "My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts," she said. "I still struggle to speak. And the pain isn't just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul."

Branch 23 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court has sentenced three individuals arrested during the January 2026 protests—Amirreza Rezaei, Vahid Gahramani, and Mehdi, a cleric whose surname has not been disclosed—to death. HRANA reported that the sentences were officially served to the three prisoners in detention on Monday, October 26.  Among the charges brought against them in this case is “operational actions on behalf of Israel.”

Gov. Mike Braun is still weighing Jeffrey Weisheit’s clemency request, however. Gov. Mike Braun’s administration will not allow death row inmate Jeffrey Weisheit to undergo additional brain scans before his scheduled execution next week. The decision follows weeks of legal efforts by his attorneys to obtain additional medical evidence for his clemency case. Braun’s general counsel, Stephanie Flittner, met with Weisheit’s legal team Wednesday to discuss the testing and his pending clemency request.

Iranian authorities have executed two prisoners, Amrollah Seiri and Reza Talebi, in Karaj and Sabzevar Central Prisons. Both were sentenced to death for “premeditated murder,” with Seiri spending 14 years in prison before his execution. According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Seiri (Hadavandi), a Lor man from Farunabad in Pakdasht County, Tehran Province, was executed in Karaj Central Prison on Wednesday morning, October 28, 2026.

A Flagler County judge sentenced Jermaine Mandell Williams Sr. to death Monday for stabbing his wife outside their Bunnell home in 2024.  Williams, 34, was convicted of 1st-degree murder in July. Jurors deliberated about 20 minutes before finding him guilty and later voted 11-1 to recommend the death penalty.  The attack happened Aug. 2, 2024. Surveillance video and testimony showed Williams went inside the home, returned with an 8-inch chef’s knife and attacked his wife, Yolonda Charmaine Williams, in the street, according to court and prosecution accounts. She was stabbed 19 to 20 times and later died at a hospital. 

A Cameron County jury recommended the death penalty for Rogelio Martinez for killing a San Benito police lieutenant during a police chase in Brownsville.  Martinez stared forward as the judge announced the recommendation. Lt. Milton Resendez's family told Martinez in court that their lives will never be the same.  Resendez's wife and siblings walked past cameras and declined to speak with reporters. Inside the courtroom, where no audio or video recording was allowed, Resendez's sister Jackie raised her voice at Martinez during impact statements. 

Brian Lansing Martin was sentenced to death Monday for killing Sheffield Police Sgt. Nick Risner, whose death prompted Alabama lawmakers to restrict early-release credits for inmates convicted of killing someone with a deadly weapon. A Colbert County judge formally imposed the sentence Oct. 26, following a jury’s unanimous recommendation in September, WAFF reported. “Today’s sentence represents justice and accountability for the murder of Sergeant Nick Risner,” Colbert County District Attorney Hal Hughston said in a statement quoted by the station.

A Kuwaiti court on Monday sentenced three men to death on charges of plotting to assassinate the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, collaborating with Iran, and joining Lebanese Hezbollah, according to two judicial sources speaking to Agence France-Presse. The Criminal Court ordered the death penalty for religious scholar and Secretary-General of the National Islamic Alliance Hussein Abdullah Al-Maatouq alongside two other individuals.

Verdicts are first issued for group of 47 French citizens handed over from Syria An Iraqi court on Tuesday sentenced seven French ISIS members to prison in the first verdicts of a trial involving 47 of the country's citizens transferred from Syria, handing down sentences under terrorism laws. The court sentenced six people to 20 years in prison, and one was jailed for 15 years.

The socialist president celebrated for abolishing the death penalty in France sent 45 condemned men to the guillotine when he was Minister of Justice. In French political history, François Mitterrand is the father of the historic victory of May 1981. He remains associated with one of the greatest moral laws of the Fifth Republic: the definitive end of capital executions, carried through with Robert Badinter in the autumn of 1981.