Death Penalty News

With executions suspended in Korea for nearly 30 years, 52 death row inmates are currently being held in domestic correctional facilities, the justice ministry said Tuesday. The death row prisoners have an average age of 58.7, while 17, or 32.7 percent, are aged 60 or older, the ministry said, four days ahead of World Day Against the Death Penalty, observed annually on Oct. 10. Those in their 50s make up the largest group, with 29 inmates, it added. The death-sentenced prisoners include notorious serial killers Yoo Young-chul and Kang Ho-sun, who are currently imprisoned at the Seoul Detention Center after being convicted of killing 20 and 10 people, respectively.

A Kentucky death row prisoner died in custody 29 years to the day after he was sentenced to death for a fatal stabbing and sexual assault in Floyd County. Donald Johnson, 59, died Oct. 1, inside the state’s sole maximum security prison, Kentucky State Penitentiary, in Eddyville. The Department of Corrections confirmed Johnson’s death Monday night and said the cause of death “does not appear to involve any criminal activity.”  “As with any death of an inmate while in prison, law enforcement has been notified,” department spokesperson Morgan Hall said in an emailed statement. 

President Donald Trump has approved the execution of the Fort Hood shooter by firing squad—the first execution of this kind in the US since the Second World War. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, killed 13 unarmed US soldiers and injured more than 30 others at Fort Hood, near Killeen, Texas, in 2009. He walked into a medical building where the soldiers were getting checkups, shouted “Allahu akbar"—Arabic for “God is great!”—and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun.

Christa Pike, the woman who survived two execution attempts in Tennessee earlier this week, remains hospitalized in critical condition, where presumably medical staff is at work trying to keep her alive.  If she wakes from the coma she had entered, Tennessee officials want to start anew to inject lethal drugs into her seemingly too-small veins to kill her and carry out the state death warrant. Pike also is being treated for “significant injuries to both arms” sustained when two lethal injections of pentobarbital failed to kill her. If she dies, there will be no need to try again.  As we know by now, Tennessee tried to put Pike to death Wednesday night by lethal injection for a murder she committed when she was 18. She would have been the first woman executed in the state in 200 years. 

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his second death warrant within a week, putting the state in position to exceed its modern-era record for executions in a single year set in 2025. DeSantis on Monday signed a warrant for Jesse Guardado, 64, to be executed Nov. 5 at Florida State Prison for the murder of a Walton County woman in 2004. With three other executions planned over the next two weeks, Guardado would become the 20th execution conducted by the state this year. The 19 executions carried out by the state in 2025 were the most for a single year in Florida since capital punishment was revived after a four-year hiatus in 1976 by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hamam al-Hammami, 29, formally charged with attempted terrorist act after attacking captain with cockpit axe. UAE prosecutors confirm he planned to crash jet in Israel United Arab Emirates prosecutors have formally charged the Flydubai co-pilot who attacked his captain mid-flight with attempted terrorism, a classification that could carry the death penalty under Emirati law. The move signals the UAE's determination to treat the incident as a planned terror attack rather than a security breach.

Hengaw – Monday, October 5, 2026 | Iranian authorities have executed Alireza Sepahi and Alireza Raisi, two protesters arrested during the widespread January 2026 protests and defendants in the case known as the “Isfahan Alikhani Square” case. Reports received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights show that Sepahi and Raisi were executed at Isfahan Central Prison on the morning of October 5, 2026. Mizan, the Iranian judiciary’s official news agency, confirmed the executions. Sepahi, 25, was arrested during the January protests after being wounded by four gunshots. His mother was also sentenced to five years in prison. His cousin, Abolfazl Sepahi, was arrested in the same case, sentenced to death, and publicly executed on July 28, 2026.

Reacting to Wednesday night’s botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee, President Trump was surprised. The New York Post quotes him as saying, “How does that happen? Should be easy to do. It shouldn’t be very difficult.” Easy? Not so. Since their introduction almost fifty years ago, lethal injection executions have proven to be anything but easy. In fact, they have been more frequently botched than any other method of execution used in American history.

Christa Pike has remained unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital in the four days since her failed execution in Tennessee, and her prognosis might not be known for days more, one of her lawyers said Sunday. Little has been released about Pike’s condition since Wednesday night’s execution attempt. She has since remained hospitalized under guard as doctors try to get the massive dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital out of her system. When asked whether she ever regained consciousness after the execution attempt, Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell, Pike’s lawyer, said on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “Not that I am aware of.”

Iranian authorities have executed five prisoners on charges of “murder” and “drug-related offenses” in prisons across Karaj, Sari, Tabriz, Gorgan, and Malayer amid an alarming rise in executions across the country. According to reports documented by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Rasoul Karimi, 42, was executed at Qezelhesar Prison in Karaj on Wednesday, September 30, 2026. He was married, had one child, and had previously been arrested on “murder” charges.

Senior Emirati source says Mossad and Israeli aviation experts joined the Abu Dhabi probe alongside Saudi, Omani and US intelligence officials, as investigators examine claims he planned to seize the cockpit and strike Tel Aviv’s Azrieli Towers The man suspected of trying to turn a Flydubai passenger jet into a weapon is expected to face the death penalty in the United Arab Emirates once the investigation is completed, according to a senior Emirati source. But before that happens, investigators in Abu Dhabi will have to answer a far more uncomfortable question: How was Hamam al-Hammami allowed anywhere near a cockpit? 

Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada has resigned as head of the state’s prison system following this week’s failed execution of Christa Pike. It was the second time this year that a scheduled execution had gone disastrously wrong at Nashville’s Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.  Gov. Bill Lee announced the “leadership transition” Saturday morning, thanking Strada for his “willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment.” The governor added that he would “pray God’s blessings over him in the days ahead.”

Indiana prison officials plan to proceed with Jeffrey Weisheit’s Nov. 5 execution after a botched lethal injection in Tennessee prompted that state’s governor to halt executions and order an independent review. The Indiana Department of Correction said Thursday that it remains confident in its procedures despite using the same protocol as Tennessee. Agency officials offered no additional details about the training of those administering lethal injections, the role of medical personnel, or safeguards for execution drugs.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 3 October 2026: State media reported the execution of Siavash Jamshidi-Kheirabadi, a protester arrested in connection with the protests in Shahrekord on 8 January. The exact location of the execution has not been specified. Siavash Jamshidi-Kheirabadi is the 32nd individual to be executed in connection with the January nationwide protests since 19 March, representing an average rate of one protester execution per week.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — Christa Pike’s attorneys are asking a Davidson County Chancery Court judge to order Tennessee officials to preserve evidence from the state’s Sept. 30 execution attempt that was not completed. The emergency motion, filed Friday, Oct. 2, asks the court to protect physical, written, and electronic evidence related to the attempted lethal injection while Pike’s broader legal challenge continues. The filing does not ask the court to decide whether Tennessee violated Pike’s constitutional rights during the procedure. Instead, it argues the state has a duty to preserve potential evidence before it can be altered, tested, discarded, or lost.

The stunning failure in Tennessee’s execution chamber on Wednesday has left both sides on the death penalty debate demanding answers. Christa Pike was placed on a ventilator and unconscious in a hospital in the hours after her failed execution in Tennessee, her attorneys said in a court filing Friday. Hospital staff, her lawyers said, were working to save Pike’s life and clear the two doses of the drug that the state uses to execute prisoners. The stunning failure in Tennessee’s execution chamber on Wednesday has left both sides on the death penalty debate demanding answers. The state's governor has ordered an independent review.

Gov. Bill Lee has ordered a 3rd-party review of the botched execution of Christa Pike and put a hold on state executions for the rest of the year.  “Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional but is effective,” said Lee in a statement.  The execution of Gary Wayne Sutton is ordered for Dec. 3, but Lee said he is pausing executions for the rest of 2026. 

Iranian authorities executed four prisoners, including three Turks, in Zanjan Central Prison and Meshgin Shahr Central Prison. Three were executed on charges related to “drug-related offenses,” while the fourth was executed on a charge of “premeditated murder.” According to reports received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, three prisoners were executed in Zanjan Central Prison on Sunday, September 27, 2026. Fateh Shafiei, 33, a Turk from Zanjan and father of one, and Hassan Mahdipour, 30, a Turk from Mianeh, were among those executed. Shafiei had been arrested three years earlier, while Mahdipour had been arrested two years earlier.

The lethal drug administered in Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute Christa Pike has been used in multiple states that carry out the death penalty and by the U.S. government after President Donald Trump resumed federal executions during his first term. Pike, 50, remained alive after two doses of pentobarbital were administered Wednesday, according to her attorneys and media witnesses. One of her lawyers said Thursday that she was being treated at a hospital. Tennessee officials haven’t explained yet what went wrong during the execution.