Death Penalty News

BOISE, Idaho — Idaho’s prison system has nearly completed execution chamber upgrades to carry out the death penalty by firing squad as the state’s lead method and will have a team of riflemen ready to go by the time a state law takes effect this summer. As part of the transition, the Idaho Department of Correction hopes to limit participation by its officers as the shooting of condemned people in prison to death is prioritized over lethal injection. Toward that effort, prisoner leadership sought to implement a push-button technology to avoid needing IDOC workers to pull the triggers.

SPARTANBURG — A 59-year-old man sentenced to death for killing a state trooper in Greenville County in 2000 can’t be executed because of a mental illness that’s left him incoherent and believing he’s immortal, a Circuit Court judge has ruled. John Richard Wood is the first condemned inmate in South Carolina found not competent to be executed since the state restarted capital punishment in September 2024. The seven executions since then include three men who chose to die by firing squad — the latest in November. Wood, convicted 24 years ago, was among death row inmates in line to receive a death warrant after exhausting their regular appeals.

A Ugandan-American man was sentenced to death on Thursday over the murder of four young children he stabbed to death at a kindergarten in Uganda's capital. Christopher Okello Onyum was arrested on 2 April as he tried to flee the daycare centre in Kampala, where he killed the tiny children, aged between 15 months to two-and-a-half years. Prosecutors said Onyum, who holds Ugandan and US citizenship, confessed to the crime, believing the "human sacrifice" would help him become rich, although he eventually pleaded not guilty in court.

Tehran executed 21-year-old karate athlete Sassan Azadvar early Thursday after protest arrest, as UN and rights groups warn of a surge in executions and mass detentions since the start of the Iran war. Iran’s judiciary has confirmed the execution of another detainee arrested during the recent protests, as the UN and other international human rights organisations reported a sharp rise in executions and arrests since the start of the Iran war in late February. Sassan Azadvar Joonqani, a 21-year-old karate athlete detained during the early January protests, was executed early Thursday morning at Dastgerd Prison in Isfahan, according to Iranian media.

Death penalty abolitionist and social justice activist Kokila Annamalai Parvathi was charged on April 23, over her refusal two-and-a-half years ago to comply with a government censorship order. As previously reported by Green Left, Annamalai defied a directive under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), to issue a “correction” to an online post she and the Transformative Justice Collective (TJC) made about the 2024 execution of Azwan bin Bohari. The post explained that Azwan had been on death row since 2019 after being arrested under the Misuse of Drugs Act four years earlier. It pointed out many inconsistencies and injustices in the way his execution had been handled by the state.

The U.S. Supreme Court had denied Broadnax’s final appeal to temporarily stop his execution and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott did not grant a last minute reprieve. James Broadnax died by lethal injection Thursday evening for the 2008 robbery and murders of two Christian music producers — after his cousin confessed to being the shooter earlier this year. Broadnax was executed minutes before 7 p.m. Thursday, April 30 in Huntsville, Texas. Broadnax’s legal team shared in a statement his words from earlier in the day.

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man convicted of beating and choking his brother’s 13-year-old stepdaughter to death nearly 50 years ago was executed Thursday evening. James Ernest Hitchcock, 70, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of the July 1976 killing of Cynthia Driggers. The curtain to the death chamber opened promptly at the 6 p.m. execution time. Hitchcock’s entire body was covered in a sheet up to his head. He stared at the ceiling as the team warden made a call, then gave his final statement.

Maybe he was confused. Or scared. But the confession had to be true. Surely Christopher Barbour just got the name wrong and identified the wrong man who raped a Montgomery woman before Barbour stabbed her to death. That’s the theory of the Alabama Attorney General’s Office, which is still insisting on keeping Barbour on death row despite DNA evidence that points to another man. The state’s top prosecutors filed new documents with an appellate court asking to stop a federal judge’s decision to give Barbour a new trial.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) reported on Thursday that at least 44 protesters including two women and three teenagers who were reportedly under the age of 18 at the time of arrest, have been sentenced to death in relation to the January 2026 protests. Hundreds more remain at risk of death penalty charges and sentences.  In a meeting with judicial authorities this morning, Iran’s Head of Judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Eje’i urged the swift implementation of death sentences and executions. Nine protesters have been executed in relation to the protests thus far, all of them since 19 March.

Kuwait appeal court upholds death sentences for three Iranians in drug case Kuwait’s Court of Appeal has upheld death sentences handed to three Iranian nationals convicted of attempting to smuggle large quantities of drugs into the country, local media reported. The ruling confirmed an earlier verdict by the Criminal Court, which found the three men guilty of trying to traffic more than 120 kilograms of hashish and 10,000 psychotropic pills.

A man convicted of beating and choking his 13-year-old step-niece to death is set to be executed in Florida STARKE, Fla. — A Florida man convicted of beating and choking his 13-year-old step-niece to death nearly 50 years ago is set to be executed Thursday evening. James Ernest Hitchcock, 70, is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. Hitchcock was initially sentenced to death in 1977 after being convicted of first-degree murder in the July 31, 1976, killing of Cynthia Driggers. Following a series of appeals, he was resentenced to death in 1988, 1993 and 1996.

⚠️ Some readers may find the following content distressing. Prosecutors have put forward worrying new details in their case against US singer D4vd. It comes after the Los Angeles Police Department arrested the 21-year-old star on 16 April in connection with the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Prosecutors allege that Burke met Celeste when she was just 11, and claim that he started sexually abusing her when she was 13 and he was 18.

Scott Peterson's attorneys said they plan to appeal to a higher court. SAN MATEO, Calif. -- A California judge has denied Scott Peterson's attempt to present new evidence that his attorneys claim exonerates him in the murder of his wife and unborn son. Laci Peterson disappeared on Christmas Eve in 2002 when she was eight months pregnant. Her body was found in the San Francisco Bay in April 2003. Scott Peterson, 53, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife and second-degree murder in the death of their unborn son. A jury found him guilty following a six-month trial in 2004.

Maryam Hodavand, a woman held in Evin Prison following her arrest during the December 2025/January 2026 uprising, has been sentenced to death by a Tehran revolutionary court in connection with a mosque fire that killed two people. Branch 26 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran, presided over by Judge Afshari, issued the sentence in relation to the fire at the Seyyed al-Shohada mosque in Pakdasht, Tehran Province. The verdict was handed down while Hodavand was denied access to legal representation.

The Court flagged the failure of trial courts to call for reports on mitigating circumstances and lack of meaningful representation in death penalty cases. The Supreme Court on Monday issued pan-India directions governing how courts must handle death penalty cases. [ Aman Singh & Anr v. State of Bihar ] A three-judge Bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and Vijay Bishnoi passed the directions while hearing an appeal filed by a convict challenging a judgment of the Patna High Court, which had upheld the death penalty awarded to him in a murder case.

Despite an 11th-hour confession from another man, James Broadnax is slated to be executed by the state of Texas later this week.  Broadnax, 37, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection April 30 in Huntsville. He was condemned by a Dallas County jury in 2009 for the deaths of Stephen Swan, 26, and Matthew Butler, 28, outside their Garland music studio. Broadnax and his cousin, Demarius Cummings, had set out to rob the men, but left with only $2 and a 1995 Ford, according to previous reporting from The Dallas Morning News. 

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are among the world’s most egregious tools of religious repression. They enable abuse, mob violence, and the targeting of individuals and religious minorities (including Christians) for criminal prosecutions that carry life sentences and death penalties.  Pakistani professor Junaid Hafeez, for instance, is imprisoned and sentenced to death for alleged blasphemy. 

The trial judge failed to take into account that the convict’s lack of means to engage a counsel constitutes a mitigating factor and ought to have been considered while sentencing.  The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court recently commuted the death penalty imposed on a Tirunelveli man, who sexually assaulted and impregnated his 14-year-old daughter, to life imprisonment till the remainder of his natural life.

The Shubra El Kheima Criminal Court has sentenced the defendant in the killing of Mirna Gamal Abdel Tawab—widely known in the media as the “Khosous Girl”—to death by hanging.  The verdict was issued after receiving the opinion of the Dar Al-Ifta al-Misriyyah, which approved the implementation of the death penalty. The court concluded that the charges against the defendant were proven based on case files and official investigations, according to local reports.  The Public Prosecution charged the 26-year-old defendant, a ceramic tile worker identified as “K.N.D.” from the Khosous area, with premeditated murder. Investigations revealed that he had planned the crime after the victim’s family rejected his proposal to marry her. 

A Florida pastor who became a potential candidate for the death penalty gets a triple life sentence for filming himself abusing a child. Jonathan Elwing, who was senior pastor at Palm View First Baptist in Palmetto when the abuse occurred, will spend the rest of his life in prison without parole after a jury found him guilty on 12 felony counts. Police initially charged the pastor and father of four with four counts of possessing child pornography and for using cryptocurrency to buy explicit images of children from the dark web.