Death Penalty News

The sentence for the knife attack in the southern city of Shenzhen in September was handed down on Friday, according to Japanese media reports A Chinese man has been sentenced to death for fatally stabbing a 10-year-old Japanese schoolboy, in a case that sparked concern among Japanese expats living in China. The sentence for the knife attack in the southern city of Shenzhen in September was handed down on Friday, according to Japanese media reports.

A Pakistani court Saturday sentenced four people to death for blasphemy, allegedly because they posted sacrilegious material on social media about Islamic religious figures and the Quran. Their lawyer said appeal preparations are underway. Under the country’s blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam or its religious figures can be sentenced to death. Authorities have yet to carry out such a penalty, although the accusation of blasphemy and opposition to the law can incite mob violence or reprisals.

The Oklahoma attorney general requested the transfer after President Donald Trump directed the DOJ to ensure states have enough lethal injection drugs to carry out executions OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma’s top prosecutor asked the federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer an inmate to state custody so that he could be executed for his role in the kidnapping and killing of a 77-year-old woman in 1999. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond requested the transfer Thursday of inmate George John Hanson, citing President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order this week that directs the U.S. Department of Justice to more actively support the death penalty.

Among the slew of executive orders signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office, one called to reinstate the death penalty for federal death row inmates. However, only three individuals remain on federal death row after former President Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 people on Dec. 23, sentencing them to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Trump criticized Biden’s decision in his executive order on the death penalty, signed on Jan. 20, and instructed the attorney general to “further evaluate whether these offenders can be charged with state capital crimes and shall recommend appropriate action to state and local authorities.”

Jakarta. The Indonesian government has agreed to transfer French citizen Serge Areski Atlaoui, who is on death row for a drug conviction, back to his home country on compassionate grounds, a senior official announced on Friday. Atlaoui, who has been diagnosed with cancer, requested to undergo medical treatment in France. The transfer is scheduled for February 4. "He is now in poor health and requires serious medical treatment," said Yusril Ihza Mahendra, Coordinating Minister for Legal, Immigration, Human Rights, and Correctional Affairs.

When Chiaki Kasai set out to make a documentary about Iwao Hakamada, a Japanese man who was acquitted in a retrial of a 1966 quadruple murder case after spending more than four decades on death row, she hoped to tell the story of his life as a promising young boxer before his life was upended by tragedy. It was a marked departure from the fascination with Hakamada as a presumed killer as a starting point, with the film describing a pugilist driven by ambitions of building a professional sporting career.

A court in India has sentenced five men to death for the gruesome gang rape and murder of a teenager as well as the killing of her father and toddler-aged niece. The crime was committed in January 2021 when the men offered the girl and her family — all members of a disadvantaged tribal community in the central state of Chhattisgarh — lifts on their motorbikes while they were waiting for public transport. They later clubbed the teenager’s father to death as he attempted to stop the rape and killed her three-year-old niece, public prosecutor Sunil Kumar Mishra told AFP.

BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — Representative Skaug presented legislation in the judiciary committee on Tuesday that would turn the firing squad into Idaho's primary form of execution. The firing squad is currently the secondary method when lethal injection drugs are not available. The Idaho Department of Corrections is slated to begin construction on a firing squad location, meaning the bill would not go into effect until mid-2026.

Arizona has no receipts for cash payments made to executioners, potentially violating federal tax law. Two independent contractors who were part of Arizona Department of Corrections execution teams in 2022 were each given cash payments totaling $60,000 for their roles in putting three men to death, according to an investigation conducted by retired U.S. Magistrate Judge David Duncan.

On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed more than two dozen Executive Orders, includ­ing a call to ​“restore” the fed­er­al death penal­ty . The Order, while lack­ing many impor­tant details, instructs the Department of Justice’s Attorney General to ​“pur­sue the death penal­ty for all crimes of a sever­i­ty demand­ing its use,” includ­ing the killing of a law enforce­ment offi­cer or ​“a cap­i­tal crime com­mit­ted by an ille­gal alien present in this coun­try” and to encour­age state attor­neys gen­er­al to bring state-cap­i­tal charges for these crimes. President Trump also calls on the Attorney General to ​“take all nec­es­sary and law­ful action” to ensure that states with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have suf­fi­cient access to the drugs need­ed for lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions. The Order also directs the Attorney General to seek to over­rule any estab­lished Supreme Court prece­dent that ​“lim­it the author­i­ty of state and fed­er­al gov­ern­ments to impose capital punis...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1.  Purpose.  Capital punishment is an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens.  Before, during, and after the founding of the United States, our cities, States, and country have continuously relied upon capital punishment as the ultimate deterrent and only proper punishment for the vilest crimes.  Our Founders knew well that only capital punishment can bring justice and restore order in response to such evil.  For this and other reasons, capital punishment continues to enjoy broad popular support.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed a sweeping execution order Monday on the death penalty that directs the attorney general to “take all necessary and lawful action” to ensure that states have enough lethal injection drugs to carry out executions. Trump’s order, coming just hours after he returned to the White House, compels the Justice Department to not only seek the death penalty in appropriate federal cases but also to help preserve capital punishment in states that have struggled to maintain adequate supplies of lethal injection drugs.

As three men challenge their commutations, others brace for imminent prison transfers and the finality of a life sentence with no chance of release. In the days after President Joe Biden commuted his death sentence, 40-year-old Rejon Taylor felt like he’d been reborn. After facing execution for virtually his entire adult life for a crime he committed at 18, he was fueled by a new sense of purpose. He was “a man on a mission,” he told me in an email on Christmas Day. “I will not squander this opportunity of mercy, of life.”

Court accepts prosecution’s objection to original 5-year jail term; verdict can be appealed; musician had been living in Istanbul but was handed over to Iran by Turkish police TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian court has sentenced popular singer Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known as Tataloo, to death on appeal after he was convicted of blasphemy, local media reported on Sunday. “The Supreme Court accepted the prosecutor’s objection” to a previous five-year jail term on offenses including blasphemy, reformist newspaper Etemad reported online.

China on Monday executed a man who killed 35 people in a car rampage in the southern city of Zhuhai in November, in the country's deadliest mass attack in years. On November 11, Fan Weiqiu, 62, deliberately drove a small SUV through crowds of people exercising outside a sports complex, also injuring 45 in China's worst such crime since 2014. He was sentenced to death last month , with a court saying his motives "were extremely vile, (and) the nature of the crime extremely egregious". State broadcaster CCTV said Monday a Zhuhai court "executed Fan Weiqiu in accordance with the execution order issued by the Supreme People's Court".

Iwao Hakamada's Trial by Ordeal Iwao Hakamada, a former Japanese professional boxer, became one of the most prominent symbols of judicial miscarriage after spending more than four decades on death row for a crime he always maintained he did not commit. His case, marked by allegations of forced confessions, fabricated evidence by the police, and prosecutorial misconduct, has drawn international attention to Japan's legal system.

WINTER GARDEN, Fla. — Florida death row inmate William "Tommy" Zeigler has filed a new motion to prove his innocence using new DNA testing. In late 2022, a judge granted Zeigler and his defense team new DNA testing on evidence from the 1975 Christmas Eve mass murder of Zeigler's family inside his Winter Garden furniture store. Police found the bodies of Zeigler's wife, Eunice, her parents, Perry and Virginia Edwards, and customer Charlie Mays inside the store alongside Zeigler.

TOKYO -- Japan is set to register no executions in 2024 for the second consecutive year, possibly affected by the high-profile acquittal of freed death row inmate Iwao Hakamada. It became certain on Dec. 27 that no inmate will be hanged in 2024 because the Act on Penal Detention Facilities and Treatment of Inmates and Detainees stipulates that executions are not carried out on Saturdays, Sundays or from Dec. 29 to Jan. 3. With no executions occurring in 2023, the period without a capital sentence being carried out has reached two years and five months. This unusually long duration in recent years is gathering attention over whether it will become a turning point for the country's death penalty system.

FUKUOKA -- The family of a death row inmate who was executed while he was preparing to request a retrial has filed a civil lawsuit demanding full disclosure of documents relating to the execution, large portions of which the Japanese government blacked out. The man, Michitoshi Kuma, was convicted of killing two elementary school students in the Fukuoka Prefecture city of Iizuka in 1992, in what came to be known as the Iizuka incident. His death sentence was finalized in 2006 and he was executed two years later at the age of 70. Kuma had protested his innocence and his family is now fighting the government seeking information on his execution, which they say was carried out too soon.

Two senior Iranian Supreme Court judges were killed and another wounded in an armed attack in Tehran on Saturday, state media reported.  They were identified as Mohammad Moghiseh and Ali Razini, both high-ranking officials. A third judge was injured and is receiving medical treatment. The attacker used a handgun to carry out the shootings before taking his own life, Fars news agency reported.  Initial investigations found that the attacker did not have a case before the court, nor any other connections, the judiciary's press service reported. The Supreme Court is the highest judicial authority in Iran, with its head appointed by the supreme leader. Headquartered in Tehran, it has branches throughout the country.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); January 17, 2025: The execution of a prisoner named Mohammad Amiri-Bahravand, who had been sentenced to death (qisas) for "premeditated murder," was carried out on Thursday morning at Khorramabad Central Prison (Parsilon). Earlier, the execution of two other prisoners on the same day had been reported. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), the death sentence of Mohammad Amiri-Bahravand, a 32-year-old man, was carried out at Khorramabad Central Prison on Thursday, January 16. He had been sentenced to qisas for "premeditated murder."

AG Merrick Garland wrote there is 'significant uncertainty' around whether drug inflicts unnecessary pain and suffering The federal government will no longer use pentobarbital in executions due to concerns of "unnecessary pain and suffering," a decision made less than one month after Tennessee announced it would be using the drug in upcoming lethal injections.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan carried out its first execution in five years late on Thursday, upsetting both rights groups and the European Union which called on the government to maintain its de facto moratorium on the death penalty. Despite Taiwan's reputation as Asia's most liberal democracy, the death penalty remains broadly popular according to opinion polls, though in recent years it has only rarely been carried out and violent crime is relatively low.

The man had been convicted of the 2017 murder of a Tecumseh police officer after he was pulled over by the officer and had outstanding warrants and shot him to avoid being arrested An Oklahoma man convicted of the 2017 murder of a Tecumseh police officer and faced the death penalty for his crimes has died in prison awaiting his execution, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

Kaohsiung, Jan. 15 (CNA) The Taiwan High Court Kaohsiung Branch on Wednesday upheld a death sentence for a man found guilty of raping and murdering a Malaysian student in a retrial. The sentence was upheld due to defendant Liang Yu-chih's (梁育誌) intention to kill, the cruelty of his actions and the high risk of him reoffending, the court said in a news statement. The ruling can be appealed. On October 28, 2020, Liang abducted the victim, a college student studying in Taiwan, when she was walking alone near her school in Tainan.

A review of state prison data, court records shows Tarrant County has surpassed Dallas County in the number of people awaiting execution.  Jason Alan Thornburg showed no emotion as the judge read his death sentence aloud. A few jurors, who had decided the murderous former street preacher’s fate moments ago, brushed away tears. Relatives and friends of the victims let out sighs of relief.  The scene in a crowded Fort Worth courtroom last month marked the 6th time last year that a Texas jury condemned a man to die. Four of those death sentences came from North Texas counties, including 3 — Thornburg’s among them — from Tarrant County. 

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); January 13, 2025: The execution of a prisoner named Jafar Fallah, who had been sentenced to death on drug-related charges, was carried out at Semnan Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), the death sentence of a man was carried out at Semnan Central Prison on the morning of Sunday, January 12. The identity of the prisoner, who had been sentenced to death on drug-related charges, has been confirmed as 44-year-old Jafar Fallah.

On January 10, 2025, three Connecticut law­mak­ers intro­duced a bill that would make it ille­gal to man­u­fac­ture and sell any drugs or med­ical devices in the state meant to car­ry out the death penal­ty. In 2024, Connecticut-based com­pa­ny Absolute Standards was iden­ti­fied as the source of lethal injec­tion drugs used in 13 fed­er­al exe­cu­tions in 2020 and 2021. In a let­ter to the bill’s spon­sors, John Criscio, President of Absolute Standards, said the com­pa­ny ceased pro­duc­tion of pen­to­bar­bi­tal in December 2020 and does not intend ​“to resume any pro­duc­tion or sale” of the drug.

Rep Anna Paulina Luna says President-elect Donald Trump backs her effort Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., is unveiling a new set of bills that could have child sexual predators facing the death penalty. "If you are raping someone, if you're molesting someone, you are essentially murdering their soul. Those people never actually fully recover. I've actually sat on a committee with a very prominent [female House Democrat] who actually talked about the fact that she was molested as a child. And so you can see that it impacts and really hurts people," Luna said.

DADU: Jamshoro’s additional sessions court on Friday sentenced a man and his son to death after they were found guilty of murdering a young woman and her father in the name of honour. The convicts Ali Mohammad Rind and his son Munir alias Farooq Rind had reportedly brutally killed 50-year-old Meer Rind and his 18-year-old daughter Ms Nimani in Joghi Khan Rind village near Sehwan in 2023.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man convicted of murdering a husband and wife during a fishing trip nearly 30 years ago is set to be executed next month in the state’s first scheduled execution of 2025. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant for James Ford on Friday.  Ford is slated to be put to death on Feb. 13 at Florida State Prison.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee on Jan. 9 released a redacted version of its newly completed execution manual, blacking out sporadic job titles and team names throughout the notably trimmed-down document that now provides vague guidelines and omits previously detailed steps on carrying out the death penalty. The Tennessee Department of Correction initially refused to hand over the manual when pressed by The Associated Press, arguing that the state had to keep the entire manual secret to protect the identities of the executioner and other people involved.

Politicians like Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton project an image of being tough on crime, but they’re also tough on those who are innocent, per a year-end report from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. The annual report tells the stories of several individuals who faced execution in 2024 despite evidence that they were not guilty of the crime for which they were convicted. Three of the eight people the state planned to execute this year tried to present evidence of innocence. 

WASHINGTON — An appeals court in Washington on Thursday temporarily halted a deal between the alleged mastermind of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, as well as other co-defendants, and the US Department of Justice at the request of the Biden administration, reported German news agency dpa. The court issued a temporary stay – a provisional suspension of the proceedings – which pauses all steps related to the proposed agreement until a final decision is made.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama has scheduled its fourth execution by nitrogen gas as critics continue to argue the new method needs additional scrutiny. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Tuesday set a Feb. 6 execution date for Demetrius Terrence Frazier, 52. Her office said the execution will be carried out by nitrogen gas. It is the state’s first scheduled execution of 2025. Frazier was convicted of killing Pauline Brown while burglarizing her Birmingham apartment in 1991.

In two videos circulating on social networks and authenticated by the site Verify.sy, the minister, a former Islamic judge in the Idlib region then under the control of al-Nosra, supervised the killing of women accused of "prostitution." The images are chilling. In one video, a man with a thick beard, wearing a chechia and qami, the traditional Muslim dress, pronounces a death sentence “for corruption and prostitution” next to a woman in  a black niqab  , on her knees. In another, the same man appears next to a woman also in a full veil, on the ground, who implores clemency. A fighter recites  verses from the Quran  and claims that there is “proof” that she committed adultery and prostitution, thus spreading “corruption on earth” . A third man then draws a handgun and shoots her in the head.

In an unusual move, two prisoners who are among the 37 federal inmates whose death sentences were commuted by President Joe Biden in December have refused to sign paperwork accepting his clemency action Two federal inmates, Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, are refusing to accept outing US President Joe Biden’s decision to commute their death sentences to life imprisonment without parole. Their refusal comes after Biden commuted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates last month, sparing them from execution.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); December 26, 2024: Hamed Pakdaman, Massoud Jalilian and Hossein Mansouri Nasab were executed for moharebeh (enmity against god) and drug-related charges, were executed in Ghezelhesar Prison. Another death row prisoner named Mohammad Koushaki died by suicide in fear of his looming execution.

Some 102 men were executed by the Congolese government in the past week, and 70 more are set to be executed, the country’s minister of justice said Sunday in a statement to the Associated Press. It said the men, aged 18 to 35, were armed robbers and “urban bandits,” locally known as Kulunas, who were executed in northwest Congo at Angenga prison. Forty-five were killed in late December, and the remaining 57 were executed within the last 48 hours. A flight of 70 more people from Kinshasa has arrived at Angenga, but the government hasn’t commented on the status of the prisoners.

SINGAPORE, Jan 6 — Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) seized drugs estimated to be worth over S$1 million (US$700K) on Saturday, potentially enough to fuel the addiction of around 4,590 drug abusers for a week. CNB said in a statement that four Singaporean suspects — three men and one woman — were arrested in connection with the drug haul, which included heroin, ice, ketamine, ecstasy, and cannabis. Two of the suspects, men aged 25 and 27, were arrested by CNB officers at a car park in the vicinity of Cassia Crescent.

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE — Just days after Tennessee announced it had a new manual for executing death row inmates, the state's top prison officials said they aren't going to release the document to the public. The Tennessee Department of Correction had told The Associated Press to file a public records request to obtain a copy of the latest execution manual, known as a protocol. However, the agency this week denied the AP's request, saying it needs to keep the entire document secret to protect the identities of the executioner and other people involved.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’s Supreme Court set a Jan. 31 date for the state’s next execution after allowing a pause for the Christmas holidays. The state is working through a backlog of inmates out of appeals but temporarily spared because prison officials couldn’t obtain drugs needed for lethal injection. Marion Bowman Jr., 44, was convicted of murder in the shooting of a friend whose burned body was found in the trunk of her car in Dorchester County in 2001.

PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona death row prisoner asked the state’s highest court to skip legal formalities and schedule his execution earlier than authorities were aiming for, pushing as he had in the past to have his death sentence carried out. Aaron Brian Gunches’ execution would mark a resumption of Arizona’s use of the death penalty after a two-year pause while it reviewed its procedures. In a handwritten court filing this week, Gunches asked the state Supreme Court to schedule his execution for mid-February for his murder conviction in the 2002 killing of Ted Price.

It’s December 18th, 2024. In the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, a guard approaches one of the 200 cells in Death Row and finds a prisoner inside, sitting on the edge of his bed. It’s 3 p.m. Kevin Ray Underwood has 24 hours left to live. Not every state in the US allows – or uses – the death penalty. The ones that do all have different execution protocols. But generally speaking, the timeline features similar events with slight differences in the details.  These protocols can take months of preparation—all so that the day of execution is well… perfectly executed. 

Iran executed three Afghan nationals on the first day of 2025 at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, according to two human rights watchdog organizations. Halvash reported that Iran executed two individuals from Afghanistan and one Baloch national in Bandar Abbas prison. They were executed without holding a last meeting with their families, the watchdog said. Another human rights watchdog, Henvaw, reported the execution of an Afghan national.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper commuted the death sentences of 15 men on his final day in office. All 15 will still serve life sentences without the possibility of parole. RALEIGH, N.C. — In one of his final acts in office, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper commuted the death sentences of 15 men convicted of murder to life in prison without parole on Tuesday, reducing the state's death row population by more than 10%.