Death Penalty News

SINGAPORE: Singapore's criminal justice policies are in accordance with international law, grounded in evidence and calibrated to its national context to protect citizens, the country's delegation told a session at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. This was in response to recommendations by several states calling for the suspension and abolition of the death penalty, said Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). Singapore presented its approach on Tuesday (May 12) at its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) - a process which reviews the human rights records of all UN member states once every five years. This was Singapore's fourth UPR.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran has executed a man accused of spying for Israel’s intelligence agency, Tehran's judiciary said on Wednesday. Ehsan Afrashteh, 32, was arrested in 2024 and sentenced to death in 2025 on espionage charges. Mizan Online, which is affiliated with the Iranian judiciary, reported early Wednesday that Afrashteh had been executed. The outlet claimed that he was trained in Nepal by Mossad to work as a spy and had sold “sensitive national information” to Tel Aviv.

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — A Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband and was later found guilty of killing him finds out Wednesday how long she will spend in prison. Kouri Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing her husband’s cocktail with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. Prosecutors said Richins, a 35-year-old real estate agent with a house-flipping business, was millions in debt and planning a future with another man. She had opened numerous life insurance policies on her husband Eric Richins without his knowledge and falsely believed she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million after he died.

Hengaw – Tuesday, May 12, 2026. Iranian authorities have secretly executed Baloch political prisoner Abduljalil Shahbakhsh at Zahedan Central Prison just 55 days after his arrest during the 40-day war involving Iran, Israel, and the United States. Shahbakhsh, from Taftan County in Sistan and Baluchestan Province, had been accused of “baghi” (armed rebellion) through alleged membership in Ansar al-Furqan, as well as espionage for Israel. Detailed information regarding his case remains limited. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Shahbakhsh was executed at dawn on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, without prior notice to his family. Legal examination of the case indicates that the judicial process leading to his execution was carried out in complete opacity and accompanied by serious violations of fair trial standards, including denial of access to an independent lawyer throughout both interrogation and court proceedings.

The Louisiana Legislature on Monday made it easier for prosecutors to seek the death penalty, as the House signed off on a bill with last-minute amendments that have been cast as a response to the Mall of Louisiana shooting. House Bill 102, by state Rep. Jeff Wiley, R-Maurepas, now expands the definition of first-degree murder to include killings carried out in public places when the defendant puts at least three people at risk of great harm. It also adds killings committed by people with illegal firearms and by people out on bail, probation or parole.

Hundreds of Hamas terrorists accused of committing war crimes during their October 2023 attack could face the death penalty after Israel late Monday approved the creation of a special military tribunal to prosecute their cases. In a rare show of Israeli political unity, the legislation received broad backing from both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition and much of the opposition, passing with 93 votes in favor and zero against.

Eichmann was hanged at midnight between May 31 and June 1, 1962. He was the only person executed in Israel after a full civilian judicial process Adolf Eichmann , one of the key architects of the Holocaust , was captured by Mossad agents on May 11, 1960, in Argentina and flown to Israel for trial. Originally born in Solingen, Germany, Eichmann moved with his family to Austria but later returned once the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933. During his time as part of the SD (Sicherheitsdienst) - the Nazi Security Service, he was involved in the surveillance of Jewish organizations. In 1937, he visited the British Mandate of Palestine to promote the Zionist emigration of Jews from Germany. This experience would later prove instrumental when he was appointed head of the Gestapo’s Jewish Affairs division at the outset of World War II.

Thursday’s execution was blocked by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “pending further order” from the court. A federal appeals court has temporarily halted Thursday’s scheduled execution of Texas death row inmate Edward Busby, citing concerns over his eligibility for capital punishment because of intellectual disability. The 2-1 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is in place “pending further order” of the court. Busby argued that a federal district court improperly denied the inmate’s request for funding to test him for intellectual disability. The appeal also provided two new tests from experts, including one provided by the state, that his lawyers argue prove Busby is intellectually disabled.

Brenda Andrew, a woman on Oklahoma’s death row, filed a petition April 27, 2026, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to reconsider her case, arguing that prosecutors relied on “rampant gender bias” during her trial and violated her constitutional right to a fair proceeding.  In January 2025, “the U.S. Supreme Court, in a per curiam decision, remanded the case for consideration of whether the state’s gendered evidence was so unduly prejudicial that it rendered her trial fundamentally unfair and unconstitutional.” 

DESOTO COUNTY, Miss. (WREG) — A billboard standing on Interstate 55 southbound as you cross the Tennessee state line and enter Mississippi from Memphis is sending a grim message to those coming into the state. DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton recently announced the new billboard campaign, which features the sign reading, “WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI. WHERE THE FIRING SQUAD IS LEGAL. THINK TWICE.” It references Mississippi’s law permitting execution by firing squad under certain circumstances for inmates sentenced to death. Barton says this campaign is aimed at deterring violent crime and sends a direct message to criminals entering Mississippi.

Narges Mohammadi’s prison memoir recounts alleged torture, isolation and denial of medical care inside Iran’s Evin, Qarchak and Zanjan prisons. Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has detailed years of beatings, solitary confinement and alleged medical neglect in Iranian prisons in a memoir smuggled out of jail, according to a report by The Guardian. The memoir, ‘ A Woman Never Stops Fighting ’ recounts her experiences inside Iran’s Evin, Qarchak and Zanjan prisons, where she says, authorities repeatedly denied her medical treatment despite severe health complications, including pulmonary embolism, seizures and heart problems.

Iranian authorities have secretly executed Erfan Shakourzadeh, a 29-year-old political prisoner, satellite technology researcher, and top-ranked aerospace engineering graduate student at Iran University of Science and Technology, at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj following nearly two years of detention on espionage-related charges. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the execution was carried out in secret at dawn on Monday, May 11, 2026, at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj.

Seyedeh Zeynab (Aban) Mousavi and her brother, Seyed Hassan Mousavi, both detained during the protests earlier this year, are facing the charge of “ moharebeh ” (waging war against God) before the Revolutionary Court in Mashhad, a charge that carries the death penalty under Iranian law.  Based on information obtained by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, a court session addressing the charges against the two siblings was held at the Revolutionary Court in Mashhad on Sunday, April 26, 2026.  During interrogations, government authorities accused the pair of “throwing Molotov cocktails” in connection with the protests in Mashhad, an allegation commonly raised against detainees under pressure to obtain forced confessions. 

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 8 May 2026: Mohammad Taghi Shahveisi, a man on death row for murder, was executed in Kermanshah Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Kermanshah (Dizel Abad) Central Prison on 6 May 2026. His identity has been established as Mohammad Taghi Shahveisi, a 42-year-old Kurdish father of four from the village of Gazaneh (Salas Babakhani) who resided in Javanroud.

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has officially affirmed the capital murder conviction and death sentence of Marco Perez, according to an announcement made by Attorney General Steve Marshall on Monday. This ruling marks a significant milestone in a case that began over seven years ago with the shooting death of Mobile Police Officer Sean Tuder. The legal journey reached this point after Perez was initially convicted in the Mobile County Circuit Court on March 18, 2024. During that trial, a jury voted 11–1 in favor of the death penalty, a recommendation the court followed.

Amendments target killings in public places that create risk of death or great bodily harm to three or more people A Louisiana bill expanded after a deadly mall shooting would broaden first-degree murder charges and potentially increase death penalty eligibility, and lawmakers cited the attack as justification for toughening the state’s homicide laws. House Bill 102 was originally introduced to create a new crime targeting abuse or neglect that seriously harms elderly or vulnerable people. But the proposal evolved significantly as it moved through the state legislature.

The store surveillance video showed Rolbert Joachin smashing the victim's car window before she exited the store and he attacked her with a hammer. Florida State Attorney Amira Fox announced Thursday that a Lee County grand jury has indicted Rolbert Joachin, a 40-year-old Haitian national, on a charge of first-degree murder in the killing of 51-year-old Nilufa Easmin, a Bangladeshi immigrant and mother of two who worked as a gas station clerk in Fort Myers. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. According to authorities, surveillance video from the D&D Convenience Store on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard captured Joachin smashing the windshield of a vehicle associated with Easmin using a hammer or mallet. When she came outside to confront him, he repeatedly struck her in the head in a targeted and extremely violent attack.

Richard Benson was shot three times and his body was set on fire inside his Fort Pierce motorcycle shop. FORT PIERCE — Former Indian River County firefighter and Melbourne police officer Otto Lenke faces a possible punishment of death after a jury on Friday convicted him of capital murder and arson charges related to the brutal 2021 homicide of Richard Benson at his business Fast Frank’s Cycle Concepts, in Fort Pierce. Benson's charred body was discovered inside his motorcycle repair shop just after 9 a.m. on Feb. 17, 2021, when St. Lucie County Fire District crews responded to the burning building in the 800 block of South Third Street just north of the main police station.

A jury has handed down a death sentence for a Phoenix chef convicted of murdering his ex-wife and 2 children on Christmas in 2017.  A verdict was reached in the penalty phase of the trial of Anthony Milan Ross on Wednesday, and it was read shortly after 11 a.m. on Thursday. The jury was unanimous in its decision for the death penalty on the 3 counts of 1st-degree murder.  A jury found him guilty last November with several aggravating factors for killing his estranged wife, Iris, and 2 children, 11-year-old Nigel and 10-month-old Anora, on Dec. 25, 2017, at his apartment near 16th Street and Highland Avenue, south of Camelback Road. 

20 years after being sentenced to death for the 2004 murders of Mikiala “Miki” Martinez and Darren Wornkey in Barton County, Sidney Gleason is asking the governor to commute his sentence to life without the possibility of parole. Gleason has applied for executive clemency.  Anyone wishing to comment should send information in writing to the Prisoner Review Board, Jayhawk Walk, 714 SW Jackson, Suite 300; Topeka, KS 66603-3722.  The Federal Public Defender’s office will publish a legal notice in the May 12 Great Bend Tribune and written comments should be submitted within 15 days of publication (May 27).