Death Penalty News

Governor Eric Holcomb says he isn’t worried about a plan to put to death a state prisoner with a drug that’s never been used in an Indiana execution. Holcomb said Thursday that while Indiana has never used pentobarbital in an execution, “Other states have, and we've done our due diligence.”

The North Carolina mother who tortured and murdered two of her adopted children could face the death penalty after the children's partial remains were found in a metal burn barrel in the back of her house. The siblings Blake and London Deven have not been seen for years, but were never reported missing by their adoptive mother, Avantae Deven.

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana is one of 27 states where state-backed executions are still legal, but no one has been put to death in a Hoosier prison in 15 years. Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita look to change that. On Wednesday, Rokita’s office filed a motion with the Indiana Supreme Court seeking to set a date for the execution of Joseph Corcoran — a Fort Wayne man found guilty of murdering four people in 1997.

Judge to decide fate of ex-prison guard trainee Zephen Xaver, who pleaded guilty to 2019 execution-style murders A jury on Wednesday recommended a former prison guard trainee be sentenced to death for his execution-style murders of five women inside a Florida bank five years ago. Jurors voted 9-3 to recommend Zephen Xaver, 27, receive the death penalty for the 23 January 2019 murders at the SunTrust Bank in Sebring, about 85 miles (135km) south-east of Tampa.

Texas executed Ramiro Gonzales on Wednesday despite a stunning reversal from a psychiatrist who helped send him to death row 17 years ago.  Gonzales, 41, was killed by lethal injection as punishment for kidnapping, raping and murdering Bridget Townsend when they were both 18. At the time, Gonzales was struggling with drug addiction. He killed Townsend, his drug dealer’s girlfriend, while trying to steal drugs. He had turned 18 two months before the killing, making him barely old enough to be legally eligible to be sentenced to death.

Richard Rojem’s death sentence was twice overturned by appellate courts, but his conviction itself has never been fully revisited. RICHARD ROJEM JR. had 20 minutes to address the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board. Wearing a maroon prison uniform, he raised his cuffed right hand and swore to tell the truth, then gave his pitch for why his life should be spared. It would take less than 90 seconds.

The Islamic Republic's judiciary has executed one more prisoner amid a surge in the death penalty. Nategh Hosseini was executed at Qazvin Central Prison on Saturday, reportedly in the presence of his seven-year-old son.  According to the Iran Human Rights Organization, Hosseini had been arrested three years ago on charges of alleged murder and subsequently sentenced to death.

WASHINGTON — Two executions — one in Texas and one in Oklahoma — scheduled for the end of June will be the eighth and ninth executions to take place this year in the United States. They would also be the second executions in each state this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that seeks to end the death penalty, urged state leaders to stop the executions by lethal injection of Ramiro Gonzales in Texas on June 26 and Richard Rojem in Oklahoma on June 27.

Days before his scheduled execution in Texas, Ramiro Gonzales speaks on faith, legacy — and apologizing to the family of his victim, Bridget Townsend. On Wednesday evening, Texas prison officials plan to execute Ramiro Gonzales, the 41-year-old who kidnapped, raped and murdered Bridget Townsend when they were both 18.

When Gov. Ron DeSantis was seeking the Republican presidential nomination last year, he ratcheted up the pace of executions, overseeing six – the most in Florida in almost a decade.  But by the time DeSantis’ presidential bid ended in January, his fervor for executions had abated, continuing into a layoff that is now prompting questions about just what powered last year’s surge. 

PETALING JAYA: The Federal Court has rejected the attempts by 19 death row inmates to commute their sentences, said Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said. The Law and Institutional Reforms minister said the Federal Court dismissed 19 review applications from 474 applications which have been completely reviewed so far to commute the death sentences.

An ambitious prosecutor seeking re-election, a governor trying to figure out what is wrong with her state’s death penalty system, a victim’s family pushing to see a killer executed, an attorney general seeking to guard her authority in the death penalty system, a death row inmate whose fate is in the balance—these elements are a familiar part of the story of capital punishment across the country. But all of them are now vividly on display in Arizona, where the political motives of an ambitious county attorney are driving a contest over the rules governing who gets to say when it is time to issue a death warrant.

Ramiro Gonzales is due to be executed by Texas on June 26 In 2006, Ramiro Gonzales was sentenced to death in Texas as punishment for kidnapping, raping and killing Bridget Townsend when they were both 18 years old. There were indications that Gonzales did not represent the “worst of the worst” kind of criminal that the death penalty is supposedly reserved for. Like many on death row, he endured horrific abuse and neglect as a child. He turned to drugs and alcohol as a teen to cope; he killed Townsend, his drug dealer’s girlfriend, while trying to steal drugs. 

Alabama lethal injection survivor Alan Eugene Miller seeks to stop ‘horrific’ nitrogen gas execution The Associated Press - Lawyers for an Alabama inmate on Friday asked a judge to block the nation’s second scheduled execution using nitrogen gas, arguing the first was a “horrific scene” that violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

On June 19, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals set aside 68-year-old Kerry Max Cook’s conviction, finding him to be “actually innocent.” Describing Mr. Cook’s case as “one of the most notable murder cases of the last half-century,” the majority opinion explains that “when it comes to solid support for actual innocence, this case contains it all—uncontroverted Brady violations, proof of false testimony, admissions of perjury, and new scientific evidence.”

A jailed Iranian rapper sentenced to death for supporting anti-government protests has had his sentence overturned on appeal by the Supreme Court, his lawyer has said. Toomaj Salehi was arrested in October 2022 after making public statements in support of protests that had exploded across Iran. His lawyer, Amir Raesian, said the Supreme Court has now ordered a retrial, and that the judges decided that Salehi's previous prison sentence of six years and three months went against Iran's multiple-offences rules, and was in excess of the legal punishment.

China has in the past accused Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, of being a ‘separatist’ who staged war games China on Friday threatened to impose the death penalty in extreme cases for “diehard” Taiwan independence separatists, a ratcheting up of pressure even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction on the democratically governed island.

Reverend Jeff Hood, 40, wants to help condemned inmates 'feel human again' and vows to continue his efforts to befriend murderers in spite of death threats against his family A reverend who has made it his mission to comfort death row inmates in their final days has revealed the '"moral torture" his endeavor entails. Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood, 40, lives with his wife and five children in Little Rock, Arkansas. But away from his normal home life, he can suddenly find himself holding the shoulder of a murderer inside an execution chamber, moments away from the end of their life. 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has approved legislation allowing the death penalty in child rape convictions, a change the Republican-controlled Statehouse championed amid concerns that the U.S. Supreme Court has banned capital punishment in such cases. Lee, a Republican, quietly signed off on the legislation in May without issuing a statement.

DENVER (AP) — Anderson Lee Aldrich, who killed five people and injured 19 others at an LGBT nightclub in Colorado Springs, is prepared to plead guilty to federal hate crime charges as well as gun charges Tuesday following new evidence of anti-gay slurs and weapons purchases before the mass shooting.

MONROE TOWNSHIP, Ohio — One year ago, three young brothers were shot and killed outside their home in New Richmond, Ohio.  Their father has been charged in their deaths. Chad Doerman was arrested last June after investigators said he shot and killed his three sons, 3-year-old Chase, 4-year-old Hunter and 7-year-old Clayton.

Professor Jimmy Gurulé, founder and director of the Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic, recently attended the world premiere of “Rebel Nun,” a documentary of the life of Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J., and her decades-long struggle against the death penalty.  The world premiere was held in New York City as part of the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival. The documentary was produced by Universal Pictures.

David Hosier, who was executed on June 11 for a crime he insisted he didn't commit, described the harrowing conditions of Missouri's death row, where he spent the last 11 years of his life During the last four months of his life, David Hosier spent almost all of his time in a 7-foot-wide by 15-foot-long cell, completely isolated from everyone, only allowed to leave if he was shackled head-to-toe, had a full security escort and a legitimate reason to venture out into the rest of the prison.

The 1200 building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where Nikolas Cruz killed 14 students and three adults in a Valentine’s Day shooting, is being torn down, much to the relief of Hunter Pollack, whose sister was one of the slain students.  Pollack believes that the building is a constant reminder of the horrific tragedy and should be demolished to help the community heal. The building has stood as a painful reminder of the tragic day for years, and the tearing down of the building is seen as an opportunity for closure for the community, which has been traumatized by the events that took place there.

"When they mapped my veins a couple nights before and seen exactly where my veins were at – I watched them map it – I thought, 'man I'm gone,'" Creech told KTVB. BOISE, Idaho — Three and a half months ago, Thomas Eugene Creech narrowly escaped death inside the execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The man who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder will face death for killing his roommate’s 25-year-old girlfriend and putting her body in a plastic storage bin in 2019. A judge sentenced Markas Fishburne to death for the murder of Aisha Levy Thursday after a jury voted 10-to-2 in February.

BEIJING: Wang Haowen, who is serving a 15-year prison term for trafficking three children, has been punished again for the same crime. The penalty this time is death, thepaper.cn reported on Thursday (June 13). According to the Chinese media outlet, the 66-year-old man was recently sentenced to death by the Nanchong Intermediate People's Court in Sichuan province after being convicted of trafficking additional 11 children.

STOCKHOLM, June 13 (Reuters) - Sweden said on Thursday it had called in Iraq's charge d'affaires in Stockholm to protest against a death sentence handed down to a Swedish citizen in Iraq. The foreign ministry said Iraqi authorities had confirmed that one Swedish citizen had been sentenced to death and that it had also received information that one or two other Swedish citizens had been handed the same sentence.

Rev. Jeff Hood served as the spiritual adviser for David Hosier, who was executed by the state of Missouri on June 11, 2024. Shortly before 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, the Rev. Jeff Hood was escorted through a maze of halls and security checks at the prison in Bonne Terre, Missouri, leading him into the state’s execution chamber. “Big door after big door closes,” he said. “Every time one of the doors closes, you can ... feel it in your soul.” He was taken into the chamber where he sat down and put his right hand on David Hosier’s shoulder.

An Alabama jury on Wednesday recommended the death penalty for a man they convicted of capital murder in the 2019 slaying of a pregnant woman in a Conecuh County grocery store. The Conecuh County jury voted 10-2 in recommending death for Michael Collin Mitchell, 43, of Evergreen in the fatal shooting of Lavon McCreary and her unborn child, court records showed.

BUFFALO — Lawyers for the shooter who killed 10 people at a Tops grocery store in 2022 have asked for a federal court order exempting him from the death penalty because he was 18 years old at the time of the racist mass shooting. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for juvenile offenders was unconstitutional. Since that ruling carved out an exemption for people under 18, the science of late-adolescent brain development has advanced markedly, according to the public defense lawyers for Payton Gendron.

A court on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali has began the trial of an Australian man who faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted of possessing methamphetamine under the country’s tough drug laws DENPASAR, Indonesia -- A court on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali on Thursday began the trial of an Australian man who faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted of possessing methamphetamine under the country's tough drug laws.

PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) — The three-story building where 17 people died in the 2018 mass shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School looms over campus behind a screened fence, a horrific and constant reminder to students, teachers, the victims’ families and passersby.

Marcellus Williams has been sentenced to death, despite prosecutors saying he is innocent A man who has been sentenced to death in Missouri is not guilty of the crimes he is being sentenced for, prosecutors have said. Marcellus Williams has now had his execution date set, despite the people who are prosecuting him insisting that he is innocent.

Alabama is seeking to carry out another nitrogen gas execution, months after the state became the first to put a person to death with the previously untested method. The attorney general’s office on Monday asked the Alabama Supreme Court to authorize an execution date for Carey Dale Grayson, who was convicted in the 1994 killing of Vickie Deblieux in Jefferson County.

David Hosier, who maintained innocence in 2009 murders of Angela and Rodney Gilpin, pronounced dead at 6.11pm Missouri executed a man on death row on Tuesday night, the state’s second lethal injection carried out this year.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); June 10, 2024: Iran Human Rights has recorded at least 64 executions in May and 237 executions in the first five months of 2024. According to data collected by Iran Human Rights, at least 64 people were executed in 18 different Iranian prisons and at least 237 were executed in the first five months of 2024.

Taberon Dave Honie is set to be executed using a new drug in a lethal injection cocktail, which will now feature ketamine alongside the usual fentanyl and potassium chloride A murderer has had his execution date set despite growing concerns over the lethal injection drug combination to be used.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Monday turned down a clemency request for condemned inmate David Hosier, a move that likely clears the way for his execution. Hosier, 69, faces lethal injection Tuesday for the 2009 deaths of a Jefferson City couple, Angela and Rodney Gilpin. 

Iran's judiciary has commuted the death sentence of a Sunni cleric to a life imprisonment sentence. Iran's judiciary media outlet, Mizan News Agency, reported that Mohammad Khezrnejad's execution sentence was reduced after he "expressed remorse and commitment to good behavior" and requested an amnesty.

The Lahore police have arrested Jamila Jacob, a Christian woman, on charges of committing blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad. The arrest followed an FIR filed at the North Cantonment police station, Lahore by Asif Ali, a local shopkeeper.

Thomas Creech, 73, was sentenced to death for fatally beating prisoner David Jensen back in 1981, but when he was wheeled into the execution chamber at Idaho Maximum Security prison in February, things didn't go to plan A death row inmate who was part of a botched execution has opened up on the harrowing ordeal.

The day after Alabama carried out the first-known US execution using nitrogen gas, its attorney general sent a clear message to death penalty states that might want to follow suit: “Alabama has done it, and now so can you.” Indeed, in the weeks immediately following the January execution of Kenneth Smith, it appeared a handful of states were listening, introducing bills that would adopt the method known as nitrogen hypoxia or a similar one. Officials behind each framed the legislation as an alternative method that could help resume executions where they had long been stalled.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); June 5, 2024: Mohammad Saeed Zohrabi, Hassan Nematollahi and Mahmoud Ghaedi were executed for drug and murder charges in Shiraz Central Prison. Three other men’s executions were postponed.

Media reported that the Idaho Department of Corrections had purchased three doses of pentobarbital, the drug used in lethal injections, for $100,000 On June 1, 2024, an Idaho jury sentenced Chad Daybell to death for the 2019 murders of his first wife and his second wife’s two youngest children. Mr. Daybell pleaded not guilty to multiple first-degree murder, fraud, and conspiracy charges, but after being found guilty, he chose to waive his right to present mitigating evidence during his sentencing hearing. 

On August 9, 2018, Steven Hale stood outside a Tennessee prison as a convicted murderer inside awaited a lethal dose of a three-drug cocktail. It was the first execution of a death row inmate in the state in nearly a decade. Hale was one of seven reporters selected by a grim lottery to witness Billy Ray Irick’s execution at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. He’d written stories about Irick’s horrific rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl more than three decades earlier.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana judges could order surgical castration for people convicted of sex crimes against young children under legislation approved Monday, and if Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signs it into law, the state apparently would be the first with such a punishment. The GOP-controlled Legislature passed the bill giving judges the option to sentence someone to surgical castration after the person has been convicted of certain aggravated sex crimes — including rape, incest and molestation — against a child under 13.

Three inmates convicted of drug offenses were executed in Adelabad Prison, Shiraz, on June 1, according to the Iran Human Rights Organization. The executed inmates have been identified as Mohammad-Saeed Zohrabi, Hassan Nematollahi, and 30-year-old Mahmoud Ghaedi.

In a landmark ruling, District Judge and Additional Sessions Judge S R Padwal has issued a triple death penalty in the harrowing case of the rape and murder of a 5-year-old girl reported in Linga village of Kalmeshwar tehsil in 2019.  Sanjay Devpuri Puri (32), the convict, faced full force of the law as Judge Padwal found him guilty under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. 

Nazir Masih was under treatment in CMH Hospital for nine days and underwent two head surgeries SARGODHA: A Christian man who became a target of an angry mob in Punjab's Sargodha district over alleged blasphemy succumbed to his injuries on Monday morning, police officials said.