Death Penalty News

The Justice Department is quietly amending its execution protocols, no longer requiring federal death sentences to be carried out by lethal injection and clearing the way to use other methods like firing squads and poison gas. The amended rule, published Friday in the Federal Register, allows the U.S. government to conduct executions by lethal injection or use "any other manner prescribed by the law of the state in which the sentence was imposed." A number of states allow other methods of execution, including electrocution, inhaling nitrogen gas or death by firing squad. It remains unclear whether the Justice Department will seek to use any methods other than lethal injection for executions in the future. The rule – which goes into effect on Dec. 24 – comes as the Justice Department has scheduled five executions during the lame-duck period, including three just days before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. RELATED |  DOJ set to execute 5 federal prisoners before Inaugur...

Chinese authorities have announced that they will formally charge 12 anti-government protesters with border violations after they were arrested trying to flee Hong Kong in a speedboat three months ago. Officials in Shenzhen’s Yantian district stated on Friday that “The investigation of 12 Hong Kong people who were found unlawfully crossing the border has ended,” allowing the court case to proceed. The individuals have been held incommunicado in Shenzhen’s Yantian Detention Center since August 23, accused of unlawfully crossing the border and organizing an illegal border crossing, crimes that could see them sentenced to up to 7 years in prison. However, they are potentially facing a more significant charge of being separatists, which, in certain cases, can result in the death penalty. A relative of one of the individuals detained has claimed that the legal process the detainees have been put through is not fair.  Human Rights Watch claims that Chinese authorities have threatened the...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered at least two people executed, banned fishing at sea and locked down the capital, Pyongyang, as part of frantic efforts to guard against the coronavirus and its economic damage, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Friday. Kim's government also ordered diplomats overseas to refrain from any acts that could provoke the United States because it is worried about President-elect Joe Biden’s expected new approach toward North Korea, lawmakers told reporters after attending a private briefing by the National Intelligence Service. One of the lawmakers, Ha Tae-keung, quoted the NIS as saying Kim is displaying “excessive anger” and taking “irrational measures” over the pandemic and its economic impact. Ha said the NIS told lawmakers that North Korea executed a high-profile money changer in Pyongyang last month after holding the person responsible for a falling exchange rate. He quoted the NIS as saying that North Korea also executed a key offici...

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A New Taipei woman was sentenced to death on Wednesday (Nov. 25) for murdering her two young children, prompting her attorney to criticize the court's decision as being "cold-blooded" and pledge to file an appeal. Earlier this year, the 30-year-old single mother, surnamed Wu (吳), who was struggling financially drugged her 8-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter and then strangled them to death. The New Taipei District Court on Wednesday ruled that as the defendant had not shown any remorse for her "abominable and inhumane acts," it was sentencing her to death for homicide, reported CNA. According to prosecutors, Wu moved in with her brother's family in 2019 after getting divorced and losing her job. On Feb. 13 of this year, she became involved in a heated argument with her brother and sister-in-law, reported TVBS. That night, she checked into a hotel and tried to smother her children using pillows, but because they struggled, she was un...

A man who killed his prison cellmate at the Blackwater River Correctional Facility in 2018 has been sentenced to death by a Santa Rosa County judge. State Attorney Bill Eddins announced in a press release Wednesday that Circuit Judge Scott Duncan ordered Thomas Fletcher, 53, be sentenced to the death penalty for the Sept. 22, 2018, murder of his cellmate. According to court documents, Fletcher killed 33-year-old Kenneth Jeff Davis by choking him from behind inside their cell. Fletcher confessed to the crime and admitted that he murdered Davis in order to be sentenced to death. According to Duncan's sentencing order, in court proceedings Fletcher waived his right to a jury trial, never challenged the death penalty and refused to offer mitigation factors that could have reduced his sentence.  The unusual moves were “a position that he has consistently maintained throughout these proceedings,” the judge noted. At the time of the murder, Fletcher was serving a life sentence for 1994 Br...

The Florida Supreme Court has ruled it cannot reinstate death sentences for 2 convicted killers who previously had those sentences vacated by the justices. The Florida Supreme Court ruled Wednesday it cannot reinstate death sentences for 2 convicted killers who previously had those sentences vacated by the justices in a ruling that could ultimately affect dozens of cases. Instead, the justices determined that new sentencing hearings must be held for this pair of inmates. They are among more than 100 murderers who had death sentences vacated over the issue of whether juries had to unanimously recommend capital punishment. “We realize that resentencing in a capital case is time-consuming and costly, all at the public’s expense. These considerations, however compelling, do not give us license to exceed the legal constraints on our authority,” the court ruled in one of the cases. The decisions are the latest twist in the Florida Supreme Court's effort to decide whether juries must unan...

Iran Human Rights Organization; November 25, 2020: A prisoner sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder, has been executed at Qom Central Prison. According to Iran Human Rights, a male prisoner was executed in Qom Prison on the morning of Monday, November 23.  The prisoner who has only been identified by his first name, Hossein, was known as “Hossein Qomi” and had been sentenced to qisas on murder charges. An informed source told IHR: “Everyone knew him as Hossein Qomi and though he was in prison for four years, nobody remembers what his real surname was.” At the time of publication, the execution of this prisoner has not been announced by the domestic media or officials in Iran. According to Iran Human Rights’ annual report, at least 225 of the 280 of those executed in 2019 were charged with "premeditated murder." As there are no legal distinctions made between murder and manslaughter, whether voluntary or involuntary in Iran, those charged under the umbrella term ...

In a joint letter to the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, ten international rights organisations demand immediate action to save the life of Ahmadreza Djalali. The full text of the letter and list of signatories are as follows: H. E. Josep Borrell High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Vice-President of the European Commission Rue de la Loi / Wetstraat 200 – 1049 Brussels Rome, 25/11/2020 Dear HR/VP Josep Borrell, We are writing to you to express our deep concern for Ahmadreza Djalali’s case . We have just learned that Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali had been transferred to solitary confinement and he will be soon transferred to Rajai Shahr Prison where his death sentence is to be carried out. Dr. Djalali is an Iranian-Swedish researcher affiliated with Sweden’s Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and Italy’s University of Eastern Piedmont in Novara, where he carried out research on improving hospitals’ emergency respo...

Japanese prosecutors have demanded the death penalty for a 30-year-old man charged with murdering nine people at his apartment in the city of Zama, near Tokyo. Prosecutors demanded the death sentence for Shiraishi Takahiro at the Tachikawa branch of the Tokyo District Court on Thursday. Shiraishi is charged with killing 1 man and 8 women, aged 15 to 26, whose remains were found at his apartment in October 2017. Shiraishi is charged with killing the victims, stealing their belongings and abandoning their remains in coolers.  He is also charged with sexually assaulting the female victims. He has pleaded guilty to the charges. RELATED |  Suspected killer of 9 people defies lawyers, says he will plead guilty However, his defense team has argued that the victims had agreed to be killed. RELATED |  'Twitter killer' victims consented to death, lawyers argue In demanding the death penalty on Thursday, prosecutors said all the victims fiercely resisted when Shiraishi strangled the...

(CNN) -- With fewer than 60 days until President-elect Joe Biden takes office, the Trump administration has set an unprecedented record of scheduling the most federal inmates for execution during the last leg of a presidential term. Attorney General William Barr resumed federal executions in July 2019 after a 17-year hiatus to bring "justice to victims of the most horrific crimes." Despite legal attempts for extensions to complete clemency petitions; requests for reprieve, commutation or clemency; and appeals to the Supreme Court, eight federal inmates have been put to death so far this year. Five more are scheduled to be executed, two within days of Biden's swearing-in ceremony. If all the executions are carried out, the federal government would have authorized the executions of 13 federal death row inmates in six months. "What is clear is that this administration wants these prisoners dead before Joe Biden takes office," Executive Director of the Death Penalty...