Death Penalty News

Florida has faced allegations that since February 2025 it has used expired lethal injection drugs A Florida Department of Corrections employee used white-out to alter the expiration dates of lethal injection drugs, according to a complaint from a Death Row inmate who was executed Thursday night, a revelation that a federal appellate judge recently called “deeply troubling.”  That episode was included in a lawsuit filed by Jesse Guardado in September that called into question whether the drugs the state uses are expired, but it didn’t affect his scheduled execution Thursday night. The U.S. Supreme Court denied Guardado’s request for a stay Thursday afternoon. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Guardado’s death warrant on Oct. 5, a week after his lawsuit was filed.

James Pavatt is scheduled to be executed on Thursday for the 2001 killing of an Oklahoma City man. OKLAHOMA CITY—Oklahoma Death Row inmate James Pavatt is set to be executed for the 2001 murder of advertising executive Rob Andrew. His execution is scheduled for Nov. 12, 2026. In 2004, Pavatt and his lover/co-conspirator, Brenda Andrew, were sentenced to death for planning the killing of her estranged husband in an attempt to claim his $800,000 life insurance policy. Brenda is the only woman on Oklahoma’s death row.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a warrant Tuesday for what is slated to be the 22nd execution of the year, even as a group of people exonerated after sitting on Florida’s death row are asking the next governor to slow the record-setting pace. The warrant is for Willie Seth Crain, a convicted child molester found guilty in the 1998 disappearance and death of 7-year-old Amanda Brown in Hillsborough County. Brown’s body was never found. Crain, 80, is scheduled to be executed Dec. 10 at Florida State Prison in Raiford.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 10 November 2026: Arshad Abbasi, a Kurdish man on death row for murder, was executed in Kermanshah Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Kermanshah Central Prison on 10 November 2026. His identity has been established as Arshad Abbasi, a 24-year-old Kurdish man from Salas, Babajani County. He was arrested around two years ago and sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder. At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Gov. Mike DeWine is considering whether to remove people from Ohio's death row before he leaves office in January. The Ohio Parole Board notified county prosecutors that it will review the cases of at least five people on death row in the coming weeks. The notices came months after DeWine called on state lawmakers to end the death penalty, arguing the system is slow, expensive and doesn't deter crime. DeWine said Monday that while he’s looking at commuting some death-penalty sentences before leaving office in January, he won’t follow California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lead by issuing a blanket commutation for all 106 Ohio Death Row inmates.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Forty-nine percent of U.S. adults are in favor of the death penalty for convicted murderers, and 45% are opposed. While statistically similar to last year’s 52%, the latest update marks the first time support has been below the majority level since 1971, when it was also at 49%. The last time support was lower than now was in 1966, when a record-low 42% favored the death penalty. The high point for support was 80% in 1994.

“They tried to remove his cross tattoo. They tortured him. They had him crucified the whole time that he was there,” the fiancée of Said Mansour Rezk Abdelrazek, an Egyptian convert to Christianity who faces the possibility of execution, told The Jerusalem Post, describing the abuse he has endured after being charged as punishment for leaving Islam. Abdelrazek was arrested in July 2025 and has been detained by Egyptian authorities since then. His lawyer, Said Fayez, confirmed on Tuesday that Egyptian prosecutors are pursuing the “maximum penalty,” either execution or 25 years' imprisonment. According to the NGO Coptic Solidarity, Abdelrazek faces charges of contempt for Islam, inciting public disorder, disseminating false information, and joining a banned terrorist organization that allegedly does not exist.

On Oct. 20, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey did something quite unusual for the chief executive of a deep-red and pro-death-penalty state: She commuted the death sentence of Toforest Johnson, who had been convicted of the 1995 murder of Deputy Sheriff William Hardy.   This was the 3rd time Ivey had used her clemency power to spare the life of someone awaiting execution. As she explained to the media, “’When presented with Mr. Johnson’s case, I had concerns there was not enough direct evidence to carry out the most serious punishment, death. My decision is not a determination of innocence, but a recognition that the circumstances of this case justify commuting his death sentence to life imprisonment, without possibility of parole.’” 

In a statement, the judiciary said that “the death sentences of Hassan Deoband, Hamid Kazemi, and Reza Zangana were carried out on charges of ‘participating in operational action for the infamous Zionist regime and the United States and hostile groups.’” ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iran on Sunday executed three more protesters over their involvement in the nationwide demonstrations in January, the judiciary announced, accusing them of spying for the United States and Israel and destroying infrastructure. 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Two failed executions in Tennessee are now at the center of a growing legal battle over the state’s lethal injection protocol after a judge ruled in favor of death row inmates Friday. A Davidson County judge ruled death row inmates can expand their lawsuit to include new allegations stemming from the botched executions of Tony Carruthers and Christa Pike. The original lawsuit, filed in March 2025, argues Tennessee’s death penalty protocol violates the constitutional rights of death row inmates with complex medical conditions. More than one year later, the state then failed to execute two inmates: Tony Carruthers and Christa Pike.

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. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom, in one of his last acts, commuted the sentences of all prisoners with death sentences, calling capital punishment morally objectionable. That’s about 1/4 of death sentences nationwide.  Gov. Gavin Newsom of California moved to spare the lives of all 548 prisoners on the state’s death row on Thursday in the largest mass commutation of death sentences in modern American history.  Mr. Newsom said he made the decision because he finds capital punishment morally objectionable. He reduced every death sentence to life in prison without parole, a sweeping move that will require a review by the state’s highest court in some cases and could draw legal challenges. 

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.