Death Penalty News

The Islamic Republic's authorities have executed two people in public. The executions come amidst a concerning trend of increasing use of the death penalty in the country. Ebrahim Gamizi, the prosecutor of central Khomein, announced that the sentence of two "armed robbers responsible for the death of Second Lieutenant Morteza Barati” was carried out in public. According to ISNA news agency, the execution took place on Monday morning in Khomein, located in the central Markazi Province.

The world's longest-serving death row inmate hailed his historic acquittal as a "complete victory" on Sunday, just days after a Japanese court declared Iwao Hakamada innocent of a 1966 quadruple murder. The 88-year-old former boxer spent 46 years on death row, mostly in solitary confinement.  The world's longest-serving death row prisoner thanked his supporters for helping him achieve "complete victory" after a Japanese court last week overturned his decades-old murder conviction.

JEDDAH – A Pakistani citizen has been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia on charges of heroin smuggling. The Saudi Ministry of Interior stated that a Pakistani named Nadeem Shahzad was arrested for heroin smuggling.  A local court sentenced him to death after the crime was proven, a decision that was upheld by the appellate court and the Supreme Court. It added that the execution of the death penalty was carried out today, September 30, in Dammam.

The Idaho Department of Correction is renovating the execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution near Kuna, according to building permits from the Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses. The change comes after the failed execution attempt of 74-year-old Thomas Creech on Feb. 28, in which the medical team could not establish an IV line to carry out his execution by lethal injection.  The department called off his execution.

Crimes now punishable by death seem to now include anti-state propaganda and illegal manufacturing, according to reports North Korea is expanding its list of crimes punishable by death, according to reports. Supreme leader Kim Jong Un's regime expanded the list of offenses warranting the death penalty from 11 to 16 via revisions of criminal law, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Saudi Arabia has carried out its highest number of executions in more than three decades after three executions announced Saturday took the 2024 figure to 198, according to an AFP tally. The Gulf monarchy executed the third highest number of prisoners in the world after China and Iran in 2023, according to Amnesty International. The latest tally surpassed its previous highs of 196 in 2022 and 192 in 1995, according to the London-based human rights group, which began recording the annual data in 1990.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); September 28, 2024: At least 14 men including two Afghan nationals were executed for murder and drug-related charges in Shiraz Central Prison on 16, 18, 23 and 25 September.  With previous reported executions, at least 19 men were hanged at the prison in the past fortnight. (IHRNGO has received reports of 36 executions but has be unable to independently verify 17 of them.)

A young Jewish man on death row for an alleged murder in Iran is at imminent risk of execution, according to human rights sources. The Islamic Republic's Supreme Court has rejected Arvin Ghahremani's appeal, who is imprisoned in Kermanshah Central Prison, for the second time. Ghahremani, 20, was sentenced to death for an alleged murder that took place during a street fight when he was 18.

The VP was once a vocal opponent of the practice. Freddie “Khalil” Owens. Marcellus “Khaliifah”  Williams. Emmanuel Littlejohn. Travis Mullis. Alan Eugene Miller. All five men were executed within one week in five different states, a period political scientist Austin Sarat condemned as “the worst execution spree in three decades.”

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); September 26, 2024: Kambakhsh Mahmoudi, a man on death row for murder, was executed in Kermanshah Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Kermanshah (Dizel Abad) Central Prison on 25 September. His identity has been established as 34-year-old Kambakhsh Mahmoudi from Bistoon who was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder.

Emmanuel Littlejohn executed in Oklahoma despite clemency recommendation from state board Things were looking up for Emmanuel Littlejohn in August as the state's parole board recommended him for clemency. But Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt was not swayed and allowed the execution to proceed. Emmanuel Littlejohn was executed by the state of Oklahoma Thursday morning in the shooting death of a beloved convenience store owner, despite a recommendation from a clemency board that his life should be spared.

Alan Eugene Miller was executed Thursday evening in Alabama, state officials said, making him the 2nd inmate known to die by nitrogen hypoxia, a controversial method critics say is tantamount to torture. Miller, 59, who was sentenced to death in 2000 for the 1999 killings of 3 men, was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m. at a prison in Atmore, Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said at a news conference.

A Saudi court sentenced a retired teacher to 30 years in jail for criticising the government on social media, less than two months after his death sentence was overturned, his brother said on Tuesday. The death sentence against Mohammed al-Ghamdi highlighted what critics describe as heightened repression under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Gulf kingdom's de facto ruler. Prince Mohammed addressed the case in an interview with Fox News that aired in September 2023, saying the government was "ashamed" over it and expressing hope the outcome could be changed.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan has renewed its call for the abolition of the death penalty following the acquittal of Iwao Hakamada, the world’s longest-serving death row inmate. “With the verdict of acquittal of Mr. Hakamada, we would like to call on Japanese society to once again consider the merits and demerits of the death penalty,” said Archbishop Tarcisio Kikuchi Isao of Tokyo, President of the Japanese Bishops’ Conference. The 88-year-old was found not guilty by the Shizuoka District Court , ending more than five decades of imprisonment.

Iwao Hakamada, whose death sentence was finalized in 1980, could have been executed at any time since then. But under a capital punishment system where rules are broken and procedures are opaque, Hakamada survived long enough to finally win an acquittal in a retrial on Sept. 26. It remains unclear why some death row inmates face execution much earlier or later than other condemned prisoners.

TOKYO — A Japanese court ruled Thursday that an 88-year-old former boxer was not guilty in a retrial for a 1966 quadruple murder, reversing an earlier wrongful conviction after decades on death row. Iwao Hakamada's acquittal by the Shizuoka District Court makes him the fifth death-row convict to be found not guilty in a retrial in postwar Japanese criminal justice. The case could rekindle a debate around abolishing the death penalty in Japan. The court's presiding judge, Koshi Kunii, said the court acknowledged multiple fabrications of evidence and that Hakamada was not the culprit, NHK said.

(NEW YORK) — Alabama is set to perform the second-ever nitrogen gas execution in the United States on Thursday. Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was sentenced to death for the 1999 murders of his then-coworkers Lee Holdbrooks and Christoper Scott Yancy, and his former supervisor Terry Lee Jarvis. Miller was to be executed in September 2022 via lethal injection, but it was called off after officials had trouble inserting an intravenous line to administer the fatal drugs and were concerned they would not be able to do so before the death warrant expired.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); September 25, 2024: According to newly obtained information, Mehdi Jahanpour who was executed for murder on 16 September, was 16 years old at the time of offence. He is the first recorded child offender to be executed in 2024. Condemning Mehdi Jahanpour’s execution, Iran Human Rights draws the international community’s attention to the execution of juvenile offenders in Iran.

The country’s Constitutional Court ruled on Sept. 20 in favor of maintaining the death penalty, in line with the position expressed by an overwhelming majority of the population. Yet, capital punishment remains controversial for a country that sees itself as East Asia's model democracy. TAIPEI — Wang Xin-Fu has spent the past 34 years in prison, where he awaits his execution. When he was arrested, in 1990, some Taiwanese territories were still under martial law — back when Chiang Kai-Shek was in power under the Kuomintang single-party rule.

Texas man who waived his right to appeal death sentence is executed for killing infant son HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man who had waived his right to appeal his death sentence was put to death Tuesday evening for killing his 3-month-old son more than 16 years ago, one of five executions scheduled within a week’s time in the U.S. Travis Mullis, 38, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville and was pronounced dead at 7:01 p.m. CDT. He was condemned for stomping to death his son Alijah in January 2008.

BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man convicted of breaking into a woman’s home and repeatedly stabbing her was executed Tuesday over the objections of the victim’s family and the prosecutor, who wanted the death sentence commuted to life in prison. Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, who was stabbed during the burglary of her suburban St. Louis home.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); September 19, 2024: Morteza Shah Esmaili and Nasim Narouyi (photo), two men on death row for drug-related charges, were executed in Yazd Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, two men including a Baluch minority were executed in Yazd Central Prison on 19 September. Their identities have been established as 35-year-old Morteza Shah Esmaili and 50-year-old Nasim Narouyi (Menan Barahouyi), a Baluch man from Zabol. Both men were sentenced to death for drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Court.

According to a posting on the Vietnam government’s website, Nguyen Hoang, a former chief accountant with the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, was found guilty of committing theft between March 2009 and February 2023 In Vietnam, a former government employee, who worked as chief accountant with the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, has been sentenced to death for stealing more than 152 billion dong ($6.2 million).

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man seeking to avoid execution suffered dual setbacks Monday as the state’s top court and governor each rejected requests to cancel his scheduled lethal injection. Marcellus Williams is set to be executed at 6 p.m. Tuesday for the 1998 murder of Lisha Gayle, a social worker and former newspaper reporter who was repeatedly stabbed during a burglary of her suburban St. Louis home.

Tokyo (AFP) – The world's longest-serving death row prisoner hears from a Japanese court on Thursday if he will again face execution or finally be acquitted, a decade after obtaining a retrial of his murder conviction. Iwao Hakamada, 88, was jailed under the death penalty for 46 years until he was freed in 2014 pending a retrial. The former boxer was first convicted in 1968 of killing his boss, the man's wife and their two teenage children.

On Tuesday, Texas is scheduled to execute a man with a long history of mental illness who has repeatedly sought to waive his right to appeal his death sentence. Death row inmates in five states are scheduled to be put to death in the span of one week, an unusually high number of executions that defies a yearslong trend of decline in both the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S.

Singapore, Sept 23: A 22-year-old Indian-origin man has been charged with the murder of a compatriot in a fight that broke out in the wee hours of Sunday in Singapore’s Little India precinct. Muhammad Sajid Saleem was given the capital charge, read in Tamil, while five other people were handed charges of rioting over the same incident that claimed the life of a 25-year-old man, Channel News Asia reported.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The state of Alabama asked a judge Friday to deny defense lawyers’ request to film the next execution by nitrogen gas in an attempt to help courts evaluate whether the new method is humane. The request to record the scheduled Sept. 26 execution of Alan Miller was filed by attorneys for another man facing the death penalty, Carey Dale Grayson. They are challenging the constitutionality of the method after Alabama carried out the nation’s first execution by nitrogen gas in January, when Kenneth Smith was put to death.

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- With Japan remaining wedded to the death penalty despite a shift away from capital punishment among many developed nations, concerns linger over the diplomatic repercussions for the Asian nation as it seeks to strengthen partnerships with democracies that prioritize human rights. "Japan emphasizes that its allies are 'partners with which it shares values,' but that is often not the case at all when it comes to the death penalty," said Takako Suzuki, a 38-year-old lawmaker from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and also a former senior vice foreign minister.

Three 19-year-old Singaporeans were arrested for drug offences on Sept 18, said the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) on Sept 20. One male teen and one female teen were arrested in a Rivervale Walk flat in Sengkang in the early evening. Various drug paraphernalia and a digital weighing scale were found in the bedroom of the male teen.

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The inhumane treatment of inmates who have been sentenced to death has come under increased scrutiny in Japan, with legal experts criticizing authorities for giving little to no warning of an impending execution and denying those on death row basic human contact. Japan has no established regulations regarding how much warning an inmate on death row should be given before they are sent to the gallows, but anecdotal evidence shows they were informed the day before at least until the 1970s. Currently, inmates are notified just one or two hours before they are hanged.

Pro-life advocates have seen significant gains in rolling back the death penalty in states around the country in recent years. A smaller but still determined band of activists and policymakers, meanwhile, is hoping for a similar victory at the federal level.  The vast majority of executions in the United States are carried out at the state level. Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1976 Gregg v. Georgia decision affirming the legality of the death penalty, just 16 convicts have been put to death by the federal government, compared with nearly 1,600 by state governments.

The 37 death row prisoners in Taiwan who have exhausted their appeals may petition for extraordinary appeals to alter their sentencing following a ruling by the Constitutional Court on Friday that stated the death penalty was constitutional, but only for “exceptional” cases . In a case brought by the 37 prisoners, the Constitutional Court ruled that the death penalty was constitutional only for “the most serious” premeditated murders and premeditated crimes resulting in death.

According to the judges, Shagufta Kiran shared an offensive message against Islam on WhatsApp. The woman, currently imprisoned in Rawalpindi, was sentenced to death at the end of a three-year trial. Shagufta Kiran, a 40-year-old Pakistani Christian woman, has been found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to death under Article 295-C of Pakistan’s Penal Code, which punishes offences against the Prophet Muhammad.

In response to a ruling by the Constitutional Court of Taiwan that found the death penalty constitutional for offences such as murder, E-Ling Chiu, Director of Amnesty International Taiwan, said: “Today’s decision is a small step for human rights in Taiwan. The Constitutional Court has recognized the fundamental flaws of the death penalty and strengthened human rights protections for those on death row. Yet the death penalty remains on the books for several offences. This marks a start in Taiwan’s journey towards abolition, and we must ensure it does not stop here.

South Carolina inmate dies by lethal injection in state’s first execution in 13 years COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina put inmate Freddie Owens to death Friday as the state restarted executions after an unintended 13-year pause because prison officials couldn’t get the drugs needed for lethal injections. Owens was convicted of the 1997 killing of a Greenville convenience store clerk during a robbery. While on trial, Owens killed a person incarcerated at a county jail. His confession to that attack was read to two different juries and a judge who all sentenced him to death.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); September 18, 2024: Abbas Karimi, a man who has been on death row for murder for nine years, is scheduled to be hanged on 3 October in Isfahan Central Prison as his family have been unable to come up with the €1.06 million blood money demanded by the victim’s family.

Two political prisoners held in Tehran's Evin Prison have been sentenced to death as Iran's execution rates continue to soar in the wake of the 2022 uprising. The charges brought against Behrouz Ehsani Eslamloo and Mehdi Hassani include "armed rebellion (baghi), waging war against God (moharebeh), spreading corruption on earth, membership in the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization, collecting classified information, and collusion against national security."

Benny Kee Soon Chuan was allegedly living a life of luxury in Thailand when local authorities arrested him and handed him over to Singapore's Central Narcotics Bureau. SINGAPORE: A Singaporean man wanted for alleged links to two cases of drug trafficking was handed a capital charge on Friday (Sep 20), after being deported to Singapore from Thailand. Benny Kee Soon Chuan, 31, is accused of conspiring with Low En Quan Justin to traffic in methamphetamine sometime in early December 2020, when Kee was not in Singapore.

This article was first published by The Marshall Project , a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook. Nikolas Cruz was the rare mass killer in America to have his fate decided at trial; many die during the shooting. It’s a bedrock principle of American justice that every defendant, no matter how serious the crime, is owed a robust defense.

On September 17, 2024, attorneys for Texas death row prisoner Robert Roberson filed a clemency petition accompanied by letters from hundreds of supporters, including eminent scientists and medical professionals, a bipartisan group of Texas legislators, and former lead Detective Brian Wharton, urging the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to reduce Mr. Roberson’s sentence. Mr. Roberson is currently scheduled to be executed on October 17, 2024. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2003 for the death of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki, who medical experts have determined died from severe viral and bacterial pneumonia that doctors failed to diagnose, not from abuse or Shaken Baby Syndrome. Despite three new expert reports showing Nikki died of pneumonia, no court has been willing to consider the evidence that clears Mr. Roberson of any crime.

"In the year of 1996... A-Ma was robbed on a hot summer night and left for dead in the street," attorney Essen Lee (李宣毅) recounted the tragic incident surrounding the death of his grandmother at the Constitutional Court in April. Lee then recalled the fury he experienced as a 16-year-old high schooler after his grandmother, Lin Li-e (林李娥), died from head injuries. But rather than voice a desire for revenge, Lee, now in his 40s, instead urged the 12 justices in front of him to do away with the death penalty system for good.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); September 15, 2024: Mostafa Fashi, a man sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder, was executed in Kermanshah Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Kermanshah (Dizel Abad) Prison on 10th September. His identity has been established as 37-year-old Mostafa Fashi from Kangavar county in Kermanshah. He was sentenced to qisas for murder.

WASHINGTON STATE — Fourteen years after the last death sentence was carried out in Washington, the execution chamber at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla was closed in a ceremony held Wednesday morning. Gov. Jay Inslee, who issued a moratorium on the death penalty ten years ago, said shuttering the chamber was the ‘final closure’ of the controversial issue in Washington state law.

Two new court filings are again aiming to halt the impending execution of Marcellus Williams, a condemned inmate in Missouri who has maintained his innocence throughout his decades on death row. Williams' case has drawn support from advocates and some legislators over the years as key evidence used to convict him of murder has been called into question. 

WALLA WALLA, Wash.-The "death chamber" at the Washington "State Penitentiary where inmates sentenced to death were executed, the last remaining one in the Washington Department of Corrections system, was taken offline on Sept. 18.  According to KING 5 reporting on the closure of the small room within the penitentiary, the closing is largely ceremonial, as Governor Jay Inslee instituted a moratorium on the death penalty in Washington in 2014.  In use since 1904, death row inmates had the choice of hanging or lethal injection in the small room within the penitentiary. 

11 executions scheduled before 2024 ends, and a Trump win could see federal executions resume in 2025 Washington's governor is set to attend an event at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla on Wednesday to mark the facility officially shutting down its death chamber. That same governor, Jay Inslee, issued a moratorium on executions early in his term, in 2014. Since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in the 1970s — after an eight-year pause due to legal wrangling over the issue — Washington has executed five people, but none since 2010.

Two Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-affiliated groups yesterday urged the Constitutional Court to uphold the constitutionality of the death penalty, with justices expected to issue a ruling tomorrow. More than 80 percent of Taiwanese who participated in the organizations’ polls and group discussions said they opposed the abolition of capital punishment, the Chinese Association for Human Rights and Taiwan Deliberative Democracy Association told a news conference in Taipei.

SINGAPORE: More Singapore residents support the use of the death penalty for the most serious crimes, according to the findings of a 2023 Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) survey released on Thursday (Sep 19). A survey was first conducted in 2021 to "better understand public perceptions" and the ministry conducted it again two years later. According to the latest survey findings, 77.4 per cent of respondents strongly agreed or agreed with the use of the death penalty for the most serious crimes, such as murder and trafficking a "significant amount of drugs".

SHENZHEN, China -- A 10-year-old Japanese boy stabbed by a man while on his way to school in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen died of his wounds early Thursday morning, the Japanese government said, sparking fears the incident will worsen already strained Sino-Japanese ties. The boy was attacked near a Japanese school Wednesday morning and had been receiving treatment at a hospital. The suspect, 44, was apprehended by police stationed near the educational facility.