Death Penalty News

A Dead Woman’s Sentence Is Commuted to Life in Prison. Justice or Farce? On July 8, England’s Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary, David Lammy, informed his colleagues in the House of Commons that King Charles had granted a conditional pardon to a woman who was executed on July 13, 1955. The beneficiary of the King’s posthumous mercy was Ruth Ellis, who, as a report in the Guardian notes , “was the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom.”

New legislation creates ‘Capitol Sexual Battery’ charge, effective July 1 MISSISSIPPI (WLBT)—Mississippi's most severe criminal punishment now applies to the most severe crimes against children, under a new state law that took effect July 1. Senate Bill 2821 creates a charge called Capitol Sexual Battery, which is punishable by the death penalty. The law applies only to cases occurring on or after July 1. Under the new law, sexual battery against a child under the age of 12 or an attempt to commit such an act that injures the child’s sexual organs, makes a defendant eligible for the death penalty.

Like Gov. Mike DeWine, most agreed the death penalty is broken and does not deter crime, but not always with the same reasoning. Some people on Ohio’s death row praised Gov. Mike DeWine for having the courage to come out against the death penalty. Others said actions speak louder than words, and they want the governor to commute their death sentences to life without the possibility of parole. But all agreed with the governor on one thing: Ohio’s death penalty law is broken. DeWine said long delays in carrying out executions undermine its intended function as a deterrent. Condemned prisoners resoundingly said that the possibility of being executed never stopped anyone from committing murder.

Twelve protesters in Isfahan face imminent execution after Iran’s Supreme Court upheld death sentences in a case built around the alleged killing of four Basij members, a lawyer familiar with the case told Iran International. The case stems from protests on January 8 at Alikhani Square in Isfahan, where authorities said four Basij members were killed. According to the lawyer, 59 people were initially arrested after the incident. The lawyer said 23 of those detained were sentenced to between five and 10 years in prison, even though they were not accused of directly taking part in the deaths and appeared to have been added to the case to strengthen the prosecution’s broader narrative.

(Lake County, FL) Today, State Attorney Bill Gladson of the Fifth Judicial Circuit, alongside Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia and Lake County Sheriff Peyton Grinnell, announces the grand jury indictment of 44-year-old Shahidul Islam. A grand jury was convened earlier today to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to charge Shahidul Islam. The grand jury returned a true bill of indictment for Premeditated First-Degree Murder with a Firearm, F.S.S. 782.04(1)(a)1, 775.087(1), 775.087(2)(a)1, 775.087(2)(a)2, and 775.087(2)(a)3.

Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in the UK, has been granted a posthumous conditional pardon. Ellis was hanged at London's Holloway Prison in 1955 after being convicted of murdering her lover David Blakely. Her family have campaigned for her murder conviction to be overturned, arguing she was a victim of domestic abuse and was physically and emotionally abused by Blakely before shooting him. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy told MPs the King had granted the pardon, saying that the death penalty had been replaced with a sentence of life imprisonment.

Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York—name a Northeastern state, and you will be naming a place where there is no death penalty. New Hampshire was the latest to join the list in 2019.  But there is one glaring omission.  Pennsylvania. In the Keystone State, capital punishment is legal, even though no one has been executed there since 1999. The state exists in a kind of death penalty limbo, not abolishing it but unable or unwilling to carry out death sentences.  Recent polls suggest that the residents of Pennsylvania are ready to break the logjam. 58% now favor a life sentence rather than the death penalty for people convicted of murder. 

Andrea Shaw is accused of suffocating her 18-month-old twins in May 2025.  An Idaho woman who said her toddler twins died last year after being vaccinated faces murder charges connected to their deaths, authorities said.   A grand jury indicted Andrea Shaw, who is accused of suffocating her 18-month-old twins in May 2025, on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder on June 29, according to court records and a statement from the Payette Police Department. 

It has been nearly 40 years since my mother, Marguerite, was murdered in a small town near Houston. It has been almost 19 years since the man who murdered her was executed. His death did not heal my pain — I still miss my mother every day — and it did not feel like “justice.” Instead, my personal experience with the death penalty left me firmly convinced that it is both a false promise to the families of murder victims and a failed public policy. That is why, as a current Kansas resident, I urge Gov. Laura Kelly to commute the death sentences of the nine men on Kansas’ death row to life without parole.

In 2008, a majority of the Supreme Court decided that executing a man who raped his eight-year-old stepdaughter so violently that she required emergency surgery violated the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. That’s the holding of Kennedy v. Louisiana , 554 U.S. 407. Four justices disagreed. Sixteen years later, multiple states have passed laws saying the majority was wrong, and they intend to prove it.

LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- Attorneys told a judge Tuesday they are ready to go forward with a multi-day hearing later this month for singer D4vd, who is charged with murdering a 14-year-old girl whose dismembered body was found in the trunk of his Tesla at a Hollywood tow yard. During the hearing set to begin July 21, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo will determine if there is sufficient evidence to allow the case against the 21-year-old singer—whose real name is David Anthony Burke—to proceed to trial. One of Burke's attorneys, Blair Berk, indicated Tuesday the defense would be ready for the upcoming hearing, following a series of requested postponements.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — Tennessee Governor Bill Lee is standing by Tennessee’s protocol for lethal injection following the botched execution of Tony Carruthers. In May, Carruthers’ execution was called off after medical personnel failed to find a vein for lethal injection. At the time, they said the first vein was found quickly, but that they could not establish a backup line as required by the state’s lethal injection protocol. The governor intervened, granting a one-year reprieve. 6 News asked Lee about it, and he chalked up what happened as a fluke, stating that it should not happen again.

On July 26, 2008, 56 people died, and more than 200 people were injured after 21 explosions rocked Ahmedabad within a span of 70 minutes. The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday upheld the death sentences of 38 convicts and life imprisonment awarded to 11 others in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts case, affirming the verdict of a special court that had convicted members of the terror outfit Indian Mujahideen (IM). A division bench of Justices A.Y. Kogje and Samir Dave dismissed all appeals filed by the convicts against the 2022 special court judgment, thereby confirming the sentences.

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Gov. Mike Braun said the future of the death penalty will be up to state lawmakers.  “It’s not an easy conversation,” Gov. Braun said during a July 2 news conference when asked about the future of Indiana’s death penalty.  There are five men on Indiana’s death row. The Attorney General’s Office is currently requesting an execution date for Jeffrey Weisheit, a death row inmate convicted of murdering two young children in 2010.  The state has put three men to death over the last 18 months since it resumed executions under former Gov. Eric Holcomb. All by lethal injection.

Indiana law says that the press has no right to be present when the state carries out executions. It limits those who can attend to the warden of the prison where the execution is carried out, immediate family members of the crime victim, no more than five friends or relatives of the convicted person, the prison physician, and the prison chaplain. Only if an inmate selects a member of the press as one of the five friends may they attend.

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Iran carried out at least 109 executions in June, including five Afghan nationals, according to the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, as the country’s use of the death penalty continues to rise. In a report, the Norway-based Iranian rights group, which tracks human rights abuses inside the country, said the figure represents an increase of at least 10% compared with the same month last year, when 99 people were executed. Hengaw did not disclose the identities of the five executed Afghans, their specific charges, or the prisons where the executions took place. According to the report, the majority of cases in June involved charges of premeditated murder (54 cases), followed by drug-related offences (44 cases) and political or espionage charges (5 cases).

PHNOM PENH: Cambodia has announced plans to ratify a key UN treaty that would permanently prohibit the reintroduction of the death penalty, reinforcing more than three decades of constitutional abolition. The announcement was made by Minister of Justice Koeut Rith during the Ninth World Congress Against the Death Penalty, held in Paris from June 30 to July 2. Rith reaffirmed the Royal Government’s commitment to ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), an international treaty aimed at the global abolition of capital punishment.

Yang Youlin, the former executive deputy director of the administrative committee of the Nanjing Development Zone in East China's Jiangsu province, was sentenced to death on Monday by the Changzhou Intermediate People's Court for multiple crimes. Yang was convicted of accepting bribes totaling over 2.2 billion yuan ($324 million). He was also deprived of political rights for life, and all his personal assets were confiscated.

Hengaw, Saturday, July 4, 2026—During the past calendar month, the death sentences of at least 109 prisoners, including 5 political prisoners, were carried out in various prisons across Iran. This figure represents an increase of at least 10 cases (equivalent to 10%) compared to the same period last year. In June 2025, at least 99 prisoners had been executed in Iranian prisons. The full identities of all 109 executed prisoners have been verified by Statistics and Documentation Center of the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.