Death Penalty News

President Joe Biden is facing growing calls to use his clemency power to commute the sentences of the 40 men on federal death row before he leaves office. The U.S. Constitution grants the president the power to issue pardons—forgiving federal criminal offenses—and commutations, which reduce penalties. The president recently exercised that power to extend a broad pardon to his son, Hunter, despite previously pledging not to do so. The move spares his son a possible prison sentence after he was convicted and pleaded guilty in tax and gun cases.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — The U.S. bishops’ conference was among the groups that urged President Joe Biden on Dec. 9 to commute exiting federal death sentences before President-elect Donald Trump, who has sought to expand the use of capital punishment, returns to the White House. Opponents of capital punishment have argued that Biden, a Catholic and the first U.S. president to have campaigned on an openly anti-death penalty platform, should follow through with concrete action in the post-election lame-duck period.

According to reports, five prisoners, including a woman, were executed in prisons across Zanjan, Tabriz, and Isfahan. Execution in Isfahan On the morning of Saturday, December 7, 2024, a prisoner identified as Ashkan Fathi, aged 21, was executed in Isfahan Central Prison. Fathi had been arrested two years ago on charges of murder and subsequently sentenced to death.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); November 30, 2024: Ahmad Shehbakhsh, a Baluch man on death row for murder, was executed in Zahedan Central Prison. According to Haal Vsh, a Baluch man was executed in Zahedan Central Prison on 30 November. His identity has been reported as 33-year-old Ahmad Shehbakhsh (Khaneshini) who was arrested in Zahedan around five years ago. He was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder by the Zahedan Criminal Court.

Pope Francis on Dec. 8 made a special appeal for the lives of death row inmates in the United States to be spared. "Let us pray for their sentence to be commuted, changed," said the pope. "Let us think of these brothers and sisters of ours and ask the Lord to save them from death." The pope's remarks come at a critical time when American Catholic leaders are pushing U.S. President Joe Biden to commute the sentences of the 40 inmates currently on death row. 

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); December 4, 2024: At least 144 people including 4 women, 12 Afghan nationals, a Jewish-Iranian and a man with intellectual disabilities were executed in Iranian prisons. On average, more than four people were executed per day. In October 2024, the Islamic Republic carried out 166 executions, the highest number of monthly executions recorded by IHRNGO since 2007. The number of executions by Iran authorities has dramatically hiked under the shadow of conflict and the international community’s attention to Middle Eastern crises.

Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were brutally executed in ‘Indonesia’s Alcatraz’. But they remained defiant until the end. The five remaining members of the infamous “Bali Nine” drug smuggling gang in Indonesia may now be coming home after the Indonesian government appeared to agree for them to be repatriated back to their native Australia this week. The news came following a meeting between Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Law, Human Rights, Immigration and Correctional Institutions, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, and Australia’s Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, during which the Indonesian authorities reportedly provisionally green-lit the proposal – which Mr Burke said was “a significant step forward and shows significant goodwill”.

Mississippi has 35 men and one woman awaiting execution on death row. The state Supreme Court handed down two decisions Thursday that dealt blows to two men on Mississippi's death row. Richard Jordan, who has been on death row in Mississippi since 1977 for the 1976 kidnapping and murder of Edwina Marter, the wife of a Gulfport bank executive, learned the court denied a motion for rehearing in his pursuit of post-conviction relief.

The state of Indiana is sched­uled to car­ry out its first exe­cu­tion in 15 years on December 18, 2024, with the sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Joseph Corcoran. Sentenced to death for the 1997 mur­ders of four peo­ple, includ­ing his broth­er, Mr. Corcoran has a long his­to­ry of seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. He has been diag­nosed with schiz­o­phre­nia, which includes symp­toms of hal­lu­ci­na­tions and delu­sions, and mul­ti­ple experts have tes­ti­fied that he is incom­pe­tent to face exe­cu­tion. Mr. Corcoran holds the con­sis­tent belief that prison guards are tor­tur­ing him with an ultra­sound machine. 

Iran’s new chastity and hijab law has drawn criticism from journalists and activists who warn it represents a new weapon in the state's arsenal against women which could authorize extreme punishments including the death penalty and flogging. The new Hijab and Chastity law, approved by parliament in September 2023 and finalized by the Guardian Council in September 2024, enforces compulsory hijab with harsher penalties, including hefty fines, longer prison sentences, and restrictions on employment and education.

The father of a 3-year-old girl was sentenced to life imprisonment, and his girlfriend received the death penalty for the brutal abuse and killing of the child in Manzhouli, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The Hulunbuir Intermediate People's Court delivered its verdict on December 6, following months of legal proceedings that exposed harrowing details of the case.

Jakarta (AFP) – Manila and Jakarta signed an agreement Friday to repatriate Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina on death row for drug charges in Indonesia since 2015, with officials saying she could return to the Philippines before Christmas. The announcement came following the Philippines' Department of Justice undersecretary Raul Vasquez meeting with Indonesia's senior law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra in Jakarta Friday, where both ministers signed the agreement.

A Tarrant County jury sentenced Jason Alan Thornburg, 44, to death for killing three people, dismembering their bodies and burning them in a dumpster in 2021. Assistant District Attorneys Kim D'Avignon, Emily Dixon and Amy Allin represented the state. In September 2021, Thornburg said David Lueras, 42, Maricruz Mathis, 33, and Lauren Phillips, 34, needed to be sacrificed for religious reasons.

Two UN human rights experts on Wednesday urged Saudi Arabia to stop the imminent execution of three foreign nationals, with Riyadh having executed more than 300 people this year -- a record tally. Four more people were put to death on Tuesday: three people convicted of drug smuggling and another convicted of murder, the official Saudi Press Agency reported, citing the interior ministry. That brought the total number of executions for the year so far to 303 , according to an AFP tally based on state media reports.

JEFFERSON CITY — Christopher Collings, 49, was executed at state prison in Bonne Terre at 6 p.m. on Tuesday for the sexual assault and murder of a 9-year-old girl dating back to 2007. "Right or wrong I accept this situation for what it is," Collings said in a written final statement. "To anyone that I have hurt in this life I am sorry. I hope that you are able to get closure and move on." Collings was convicted of first-degree murder for raping and strangling 9-year-old Rowan Ford with chicken wire before throwing her into a sinkhole. In an April news release, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said, "the jury found Collings tortured the victim in a way that was vile, horrible, and inhumane."

Vietnamese courts said that property developer Truong My Lan's sentence could be reduced to life imprisonment if she pays back three quarters of the assets she is accused of stealing from Saigon Commercial Bank. A Vietnamese court upheld the death penalty Tuesday for a property tycoon in a multi-billion dollar fraud case -- but said her life could still be spared if she paid back three quarters of the assets she embezzled.

Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has brought back an Indonesian woman who was sentenced to death for murder in Saudi Arabia and returned her to her family in Bangkalan, East Java. The woman, identified by the initials HMM, was detained by the Saudi authorities and sentenced to death in 2009 for killing her Saudi husband, according to a statement in Jakarta on Monday. The ministry and the Indonesian Consulate General (KJRI) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, made several efforts to resolve the case through diplomatic, litigation, and non-litigation means and to secure HMM's release.

With Trump returning to the White House, only mass commutations will stop another federal execution spree. Five days after Orlando Hall was executed in the federal death chamber, Donald Trump appeared in the White House Rose Garden for the 2020 Thanksgiving turkey pardon ceremony. The enormous white birds, Corn and Cob, stood ridiculously as Trump wished them a “very long, happy, and memorable life.” At the Special Confinement Unit inside the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, men on death row watched news coverage on TV.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); November 29, 2024: Kamran Hemati, a man on death row for murder, was executed in Arak Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Arak Central Prison on 28 November. His identity has been established as Kamran Hemati from Khorramabad. He was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder by the Criminal Court. At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

On December 18, Indiana hopes to get back into the execution business. On that date, it plans to put Joseph Corcoran to death for the 1997 murder of four people, including his brother. Corcoran is one of eight men on Indiana’s death row—also called “X Row.” The others include an inmate who “stabbed two co-workers after he was fired,” another who “shot and killed a police officer,” and two people who each “killed multiple children.” Corcoran’s lawyers are seeking a stay of execution because he has long suffered from a serious mental illness. As they explain, he “cannot distinguish between reality and his delusions and hallucinations — his delusions are his reality.”

The new Indonesian president – who came to office with a questionable human rights record – has emerged as an unlikely champion for a prisoner swap deal In the dark of the early morning of 29 April 2015, two members of Australia’s so-called Bali Nine were each tied to a stake in a floodlit field on the Indonesian prison island of Nusakambangan. Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran refused blindfolds, and sang as they stood before a firing squad of 12. They were killed at 12.35am.

Joe Biden’s Catholic faith should inspire him to stop the federal death penalty in its tracks In the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election, opponents of the death penalty are mounting a campaign to convince President Biden to commute the sentences of everyone on federal death row. Doing so would be a vindication not only of his announced anti-death penalty position but also of his Catholic faith .

Jakarta (AFP) – France has asked Indonesia to transfer a French death row convict, who has been jailed for drug crimes in the Asian nation since 2005, a senior Indonesian minister told AFP on Friday. Indonesia is in discussion with three countries, including France, over the return of several high-profile detainees and aims to transfer the prisoners by the end of December. "The French embassy has delivered a letter from France's justice minister to Indonesia's law minister dated November 4 containing a request for the transfer of a French prisoner named Serge Atlaoui," senior law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra told AFP in a message.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); November 29, 2024: Fariba Maleki Shahivand, a woman on death row for murder, was executed in Khorramabad Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a woman was executed in Khorramabad (Parsilion) Central Prison on 24 November. Her identity has been established as Fariba Maleki Shahivand, a mother to a five-year-old girl. An informed source told IHRNGO: “Fariba was accused of unintentionally killing her sister-in-law and mother-in-law during an altercation four years ago, when her daughter was just one year old.”