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Women Being Sent to the Gallows in Alarming Numbers in Iran

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Many Were Child Brides Hanged for Murder of Abusive Husbands From Whom There Was No Protection  December 18, 2024 — Amidst a huge surge in executions in the Islamic Republic— 862 so far in 2024, the highest per capita execution rate globally—the Iranian authorities are now increasingly including women in those it sends to the gallows. Since the start of 2024, Iran has executed at least 29 women. More executions of women may have taken place that are unknown.
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California's death penalty on hold again

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San Quentin's brand new
execution chamber and gurney
Ensuring California's death penalty system remains in limbo for the foreseeable future, a state appeals court on Thursday scrapped the state's latest attempt to update its lethal injection procedures.

In a 28-page ruling, the 1st District Court of Appeal invalidated California's lethal injection procedures, finding that state prison officials failed to comply with proper administrative rules when crafting new regulations more than two years ago. The decision sends California back to the drawing board, unless the Brown administration appeals the decision to the California Supreme Court.

The appeals court upheld a Marin County judge, who likewise found the prison department failed to comply with the state's administrative procedures act for a variety of reasons, including providing no public explanation for why San Quentin officials opted to continue with a three-drug lethal injection method as opposed to a single drug execution option being embraced by a number of other states.

The appeals court decision is the latest setback for death penalty supporters in California, where there has been a moratorium on executions since 2006 as a result of legal challenges to the state's lethal injection procedures in both the state and federal courts. There are now more than 725 inmates awaiting execution on death row, including more than a dozen who have exhausted their legal appeals and would be eligible to be executed immediately if the state resumed executions.


Source: Mercury News, May 30, 2013
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