Death Penalty News

Las dos personas a las que alude este testigo "no estaban en la cárcel" cuando se cometieron los crímenes y, además, ha apuntado, "hay una foto de uno de ellos, de los años 90, que se parece bastante más que Pablo a la famosa foto sacada del video" Una nueva esperanza se ha abierto para los familiares de Pablo Ibar, que cumple cadena perpetua en Estados Unidos un supuesto triple asesinato. Dicen estar "esperanzados, pero cautos", tras la localización de una persona que asegura conocer a los verdaderos autores de los crímenes de Florida por los que se encuentra encarcelado el hombre de origen vasco, sobrino del legendario boxeador guipuzcoano 'Urtain', informa Europa Press. Así lo ha asegurado Andrés Krakenberg, portavoz de la familia y la asociación Pablo Ibar Juicio Justo.

From the outside, the Tokyo Detention House looks much like the other tall, austere buildings native to Katsushika City, but its drab facade and tree-lined grounds conceal a far more sinister reality. It is here that Japan's most deplorable criminals are plucked from their cells and hanged underneath fluorescent lights in a cold, bare wood-panelled room.  There is a chillingly theatrical element to how the condemned are executed in the East Asian country - the only member of the G7 besides the US that still metes out capital punishment.  Shackled prisoners are led past a small gold statue of Kannon, a Buddhist figure associated with compassion, as they enter their sterile execution chamber. 

TOKYO – Japan’s criminal justice system is under intense scrutiny after the courts, within months, twice accused law enforcement officials of fabricating evidence in their zealous pursuit of convictions. The damning indictments in two cases – one involving murder, the other economic security – expose flaws in a system that prides itself on a 99.8 per cent conviction rate. On Oct 8, 2024, the nearly six-decade ordeal of former boxer Iwao Hakamada finally concluded when prosecutors decided not to appeal a retrial verdict that had exonerated him of four murders in 1966.

In the aftermath of a 12-day war with Israel, Iranian leaders and media are celebrating an unusual show of nationwide solidarity, but some warn that this calm—marked not by rallies but by silence—may soon give way to a deeper reckoning. On Thursday, President Massoud Pezeshkian thanked all Iranians for their restraint during the conflict, including political prisoners. The relative moderate was, in effect, praising the absence of street protests even as the state failed to protect civilians or address their fears.

Iran’s parliament passed a law on Sunday intensifying penalties for collaboration with Israel, the United States, and other hostile countries against national security and interests. The legislation classifies such acts as “corruption on earth”, punishable by death. “Any intelligence, espionage, or operational activity for Israel, the US, or other hostile regimes and groups or their agents against the country’s security or national interests is considered corruption on earth and punishable by death,” the law says.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday acquitted Anwar Kenneth, a 72-year-old Christian man who spent more than two decades on death row under a blasphemy conviction, citing mental illness as a key factor in its ruling. Kenneth, a former government employee, was arrested in 2001 after allegedly writing letters deemed blasphemous toward the majority religion. In 2002, he was sentenced to death under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code and fined five million rupees. Despite concerns over his mental health and reports of a coerced guilty plea, the Lahore High Court upheld the conviction in 2014.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Next month, the state of Florida will officially be allowed to use new means of executing prisoners on death row — with some caveats. That’s because of a state law (HB 903) that’s set to take effect on July 1, alongside over 120 others. The law actually makes a variety of technical changes to different issues, including prepayment of court costs, statutes of limitations on prisoner lawsuits, and location tracking for inmates. However, one of the more prominent issues tackled by the law is the death penalty. Under prior law, a death sentence carried out in Florida had to be performed via either electrocution or lethal injection. The choice of which was left up to the prisoner being executed.

Gov. Gavin Newsom still has a year and a half left in office, but advocates are starting their call now for him to commute, or reduce, all death sentences in California. The state has 585 people sentenced to death.  Throughout his time in the top office, Newsom has repeatedly spoken out against the death penalty system, calling it “a failure” that discriminates based on race and wealth with “no public safety benefit or value as a deterrent.”

On June 26, 2025, the United States Supreme Court issued a rare 6 – 3 rul­ing in favor of a Texas death row pris­on­er, Ruben Gutierrez, hold­ing that he may pro­ceed with his law­suit chal­leng­ing Texas’s post-con­vic­tion DNA statute on con­sti­tu­tion­al grounds. Mr. Gutierrez was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1999 for the mur­der and rob­bery of an 85-year-old woman but has long main­tained he did not know his code­fen­dants would kill the vic­tim. According to the deci­sion, ​“Gutierrez has stand­ing to bring his §1983 claim chal­leng­ing Texas’ post-con­vic­tion DNA test­ing pro­ce­dures under the Due Process Clause.” 

A defense attorney for Pablo Ibar, the man sentenced to life in the June 1994 “Casey’s Nickelodeon” murders, is seeking to have his 2019 conviction vacated after a new witness came forward, alleging two people who were never charged were the true killers.  The “newly discovered evidence,” a sworn affidavit from a witness who was previously not known to Ibar’s defense, could have potentially resulted in a different outcome at Ibar’s trial, attorney Daniel Tibbitt wrote in a court motion filed Sunday. 

TOKYO — Japan on Friday executed a man dubbed the "Twitter killer" who murdered and dismembered nine people he met online, in the nation's first enactment of the death penalty since 2022. Takahiro Shiraishi, 34, was hanged for killing his young victims, all but one of whom were women, after contacting them on the social media platform now called X. He had targeted users who posted about taking their own lives, telling them he could help them in their plans, or even die alongside them. Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki said Shiraishi's crimes, carried out in 2017, included "robbery, rape, murder... destruction of a corpse and abandonment of a corpse".

In the aftermath of Israel’s June 13 attacks on Iranian regime military and nuclear facilities, the regime has responded with a sweeping crackdown inside its borders. More than 500 individuals have been arrested on charges of collaboration with Israel, alongside 300 others accused of online activities deemed subversive. At least six people have been executed in connection with alleged ties to Israel, raising grave concerns about a renewed wave of politically motivated executions.

TEMPO.CO, Medan - The Medan district court sentenced four people to death for carrying 40 kilograms of crystal meth. "The court sentences the four defendants to death penalty," said sitting judge Phillip Mark Soentpiet at the Medan District Court, on Wednesday, June 25, 2025. The four defendants are Benyamin Sembiring (39) and Senta Sitepu (40), both residents of Namotualang Village, Sibiru-biru District, Deliserdang Regency; Puji Minarto Nasution (40), a resident of Jalan Kelambir 5, Medanhelvetia District, Medan City; and Sahrial (36), a resident of Dusun 1, Desa Seiapungjaya, Tanjungbalai District, Asahan Regency.

Mississippi executes inmate who’s been on death row almost half a century Richard Gerald Jordan, 79, received a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary after being on death row since 1976  Mississippi has executed Richard Gerald Jordan, the state’s longest-serving death row inmate.  Jordan, 79, was put to death by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman Wednesday evening, nearly 50 years on from when he kidnapped and killed a bank loan officer’s wife in a violent ransom scheme.

The Republican governor also reiterated his desire for Hoosier lawmakers to discuss the future of capital punishment in the state. Gov. Mike Braun confirmed Tuesday that Indiana spent more than $1 million in taxpayer funds to purchase four doses of execution drugs — some which were used, and several others that expired. He also clarified that the drugs were purchased in two transactions — one under former Gov. Eric Holcomb and one by him. In total, $1.175 million was spent, Braun said. But two of those — worth $600,000 — expired with no use because “they had been on the shelf too long.”

Court says forced confession and wrongful conviction led to death penalty of innocent in 1967 A man executed after wrongfully being convicted of spying for North Korea has been posthumously exonerated by court, in a retrial held over half a century after his death. Court officials said Wednesday that the Supreme Court confirmed a lower court's not-guilty verdict for the late Oh Gyeong-mu, who was convicted of violating the National Security Act and now-defunct Anti-Communism Act in 1967. A separate retrial in the 2020s also cleared the charges against the younger brother and sister of the deceased.

The court upheld the previous ruling, stating Jordan didn't prove the three-drug lethal injection protocol would cause undue suffering. Mississippi prisoner Richard Gerald Jordan was dealt another blow in his last-minute effort to stop his execution, set for Wednesday, June 25. On Tuesday afternoon, June 24, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate's ruling on Jordan's petition for a preliminary injunction to protest the state's three-drug protocol for lethal injection executions.

Vietnam to remove death penalty for embezzlement, sparing tycoon's life HANOI — Vietnam will remove the death penalty for eight offenses from next month, including embezzlement and activities aimed at overthrowing the government, parliament said on Wednesday (June 25), sparing the life of a tycoon in a US$12-billion (S$15.3-billion) fraud case. The National Assembly, the country's lawmaking body, unanimously ratified the amendment to the Criminal Code earlier on Wednesday to abolish the death penalty for the crimes, it said in a statement.

Iran has carried out the execution of three men accused of espionage and collaboration with the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. This development follows only 24 hours after a ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel was announced. The move has drawn sharp international attention and renewed concerns over human rights practices in the region. The Iranian judiciary stated that Idris Ali, Azad Shojaei, and Rasoul Ahmad Rasoul were hanged early in the morning in Urmia, a city located near the Turkish border. Authorities claimed that the three men had smuggled weapons into Iran and supported Mossad in planning assassination operations inside the country.

Man executed for raping, killing Florida woman outside bar  A man convicted of raping and killing a woman near a central Florida bar was executed Tuesday evening.  Thomas Lee Gudinas, 51, received a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, following decades on death row for the 1994 killing of Michelle McGrath. His execution proceeded as scheduled after last-day appeals were denied. DOC spokesperson Ted Veerman reported that Gudinas woke up at 4:45 a.m. His last meal was a pepperoni pizza, fries, and a soda. He had one visitor today—his mother. When asked about how the DOC staff is handling the pace of executions, Veerman said the “professional” staff is doing a “fantastic job.” When the curtain to the execution room opened at 6.00pm, Gudinas was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his left arm. Then, after the warden got off the phone with the governor’s office, he asked Gudinas whether he wanted to make a last statement. Although Gudinas’s words were inau...

‘My biggest dream is that there will be Pride in the streets of Tehran’ Growing up in Iran, where homosexuality is punishable with the death penalty, Majid Parsa (pseudonym) struggled to accept his sexuality - until he discovered Tehran’s secret gay scene. But it was only when he moved to the UK that he found love and liberation, as he reveals here in Attitude's Rainbow World feature

The process by which Governor Ron DeSantis decides who will be the next prisoner executed in Florida remains an enigma, as opaque as a "black hole." Despite attempts to bring transparency to this system, the Florida Supreme Court recently approved another execution, marking the state's seventh this year, with an eighth still under review.  The court's denial of Thomas Gudinas' appeal was its 140th consecutive ruling against a death row inmate, consistently dismissing arguments as either repetitive or procedurally barred by rules favoring the executioner.  Gudinas' appeal largely focused on his mental and emotional maturity at the time of his crimes in 1994, arguing he had the development of a teenager despite being 20. Such arguments, however, rarely sway the court.

Tehran accuses Ukraine of cooperating with Mossad to target drone facility in Isfahan, sentences suspects to death by hanging Iran has sentenced three Ukrainian nationals to death after accusing them of plotting a terrorist attack on a drone manufacturing plant in Isfahan, allegedly under the guidance of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. According to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, the individuals were arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iranian intelligence services while attempting to infiltrate the Shahed Aviation Industry facility. 

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); June 23, 2025: Iran state media reported the execution of Mohammad Amin Mahdavi Shayesteh on charges of collaborating with Israel at an undisclosed prison. Iran Human previously warned of the execution of defendants accused of espionage for Israel and published a list which included Mohammad Amin Mahdavi Shayesteh. IHRNGO Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam wrote: “The Islamic Republic executed Mohammad Amin Mahdvadi Shayesteh this morning on charges of collaborating with Israel! Mohammad Amin, like others, was sentenced to death based on confessions obtained under torture without a fair trial.”

On June 16, 2025, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion in the Anderson County District Court request­ing a new exe­cu­tion date for Robert Roberson, despite the fact that a motion from defense coun­sel with new evi­dence in sup­port of Mr. Roberson’s actu­al inno­cence remains pend­ing. As the Dallas Morning Editorial Board notes, it is ​“unusu­al” that “[AG] Paxton’s office is involved” in request­ing the exe­cu­tion date. AG Paxton has active­ly sought Mr. Roberson’s exe­cu­tion and has pub­licly dis­put­ed his claims of inno­cence ; his office recent­ly took over Mr. Roberson’s case from the district attorney.

Los crímenes fueron cometidos en 1994. Pablo Ibar fue condenado a pena de muerte, pero ahora cumple cadena perpetua BILBAO.- Daniel Tibbitt, actual abogado de Pablo Ibar, sobrino del legendario boxeador guipuzcoano 'Urtain', afirmó que ha localizado a una persona que asegura conocer a los verdaderos autores de los crímenes de Florida por los que se encuentra encarcelado el preso de origen vasco. "Sabemos los nombres y apellidos de las personas sospechosas de haber cometido estos crímenes", ha asegurado el también letrado Joe Nascimiento.

Evin Prison holds many Iranian political prisoners and is where many of the anti-regime protesters are sent following arrest. Israel has struck the infamous Evin Prison in Tehran, Israeli officials confirmed to The Jerusalem Post on Monday. Footage from the attack shows one strike hitting the entrance gate to the prison. Iran's judiciary confirmed the prison had been hit but said the situation was under control, according to Iranian media. The strike was deliberately targeted at the entrance gate so as to avoid hitting the inmate housing, Iran International reported. IDF’s strikes targeted several high-value locations in the heart of Tehran According to Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, the IDF’s strikes targeted several high-value locations in the heart of Tehran. These included the headquarters of the Basij paramilitary forces, the office of internal security under the Revolutionary Guards, the ideology department, and Evin Prison — a facility known for detaining political di...

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); June 22, 2025: Iran state media reported the execution of Majid Mosayebi on security-related charges through espionage for Israel. According to unverified reports, Mohammad Amin Mahdavi Shayesteh, another espionage defendant, was transferred to pre-execution solitary confinement cells. Since the start of the Israel-Iran war on 13 June 2025, at least nine men have been executed in Iran, two of whom were on death row for espionage charges.

The execution attempt lasted over an hour There's not many people in the world who can say they've survived an execution, but one man in the US managed exactly that. Thomas Creech has now opened up about the moment he thought he was 'dead' after things went wrong, or very right depending on your point of view, as his lethal injection somehow failed last year. Death Row has long been a source of controversy in the US, with Gregory Hunt selecting an unusual new method of execution in Alabama earlier this month.

The State of Florida announced Friday it is seeking the death penalty for a registered sex offender accused of more child sex crimes in Putnam County. According to a May 16 post by the sheriff's office, Welaka resident Dimeco Henderson, 34, was already a registered sex offender when he was accused in April of sex crimes with two children in Putnam County. Putnam County detectives were notified on April 30 of Henderson's possible sex crimes against the two children. Detectives spoke with the children at their elementary school and were subsequently brought to the county's child protection team for interviews.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); June 21, 2025: Teimur Pouladvand, Nezam Moradi, Mahmoud Dehghan and Ali Akbar Younesi were executed in a group hanging in Shiraz Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, four men were hanged in Shiraz (Adel Abad) Central Prison on 17 June 2025. One of the men who was on death row for drug-related offences has been identified as Teimur Pouldvand from Aligudarz. He was arrested three years ago.

The Iranian authorities must halt all plans to carry out arbitrary executions and protect all those arrested over accusations of espionage for Israel from enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment, Amnesty International said today. Since Israel’s attacks on Iran began on 13 June, Iranian authorities have arrested scores of people over accusations of “collaboration” with Israel, made chilling calls for expedited trials and executions, and executed one man on 16 June. There are also grave concerns for those who were already on death row, including at least eight men sentenced to death for such accusations following unfair trials.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); June 19, 2025: Since the start of Israel’s attack on Iran, according to state media, the Islamic Republic media has arrested at least 223 for charges related to collaboration with Israel. Internet access has also been severely restricted and two political prisoners, Ali Younesi and Hamid Kashani , were transferred from Evin Prison to an unknown location without notice. Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic’s judiciary and parliament have called for harsher sentences in Israel-related cases and faster implementation of those punishments.

Michelle Lyons' job wasn't for the fainthearted A woman who watched nearly 300 death row executions take place over 12 years opened up about how her macabre career impacted her life. For more than a decade, it was part of Michelle Lyons' job description to observe the final moments of hundreds of prisoners in the US state of Texas. She says the process never 'become mundane or normal', although she did become acclimatized to it - as she went on to watch so many executions that she 'can't recall' a lot of them.

Roberson was convicted of killing his daughter based on a theory of “shaken baby syndrome.”  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won’t abandon his ugly campaign to deny justice to Robert Roberson, even as Roberson’s lawyers keep discrediting his conviction in the death of his 2-year-old daughter.  This week, Paxton’s office requested a new execution date for Roberson despite the fact that a new appeal on Roberson’s behalf is pending before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.  Perhaps even more unusual is the fact that Paxton’s office is involved at all. The attorney general’s office has taken over the prosecution, reportedly at the request of Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, who has litigated the case for years. 

Intensified Repression to Prevent Potential Protests Amid escalating regional tensions and growing public dissatisfaction, a new wave of mass arrests has begun in Iran. According to reports, on Monday, June 16, 2025, at least 30 citizens were detained by security and law enforcement forces in the provinces of Ardabil, North Khorasan, Kerman, and Mazandaran. These arrests are part of a systematic policy by the Iranian authorities aimed at preemptive repression and controlling the public sphere in anticipation of potential mass protests.

Nearly half of all exe­cu­tions to date in 2025 in Iran (244) and Saudi Arabia (50) have been for drug-relat­ed crimes, track­ing close­ly pat­terns doc­u­ment­ed by Harm Reduction International (HRI) for 2024.  According to HRI’s new report, The Death Penalty for Drug Offenses: Global Overview 2024, the use of the death penal­ty for drug-relat­ed crimes reached ​“cri­sis lev­els” in 2024. At least 615 peo­ple were known to be exe­cut­ed on drug-relat­ed charges world­wide, 607 of which took place in Iran (at least 485 ) and Saudi Arabia ( 122 ). This marks a 32% increase from 2023 and the ​“dead­liest year on record” since 2015, accord­ing to HRI. Drug-relat­ed exe­cu­tions account­ed for about 40% of all known exe­cu­tions world­wide in 2024 and are on track to reach almost half of all exe­cu­tions in 2025.

The Belarusian democratic forces have taken an additional step toward aligning their vision of a future Belarus with European human rights standards by adopting a Memorandum on the Abolition of the Death Penalty in Belarus. The document was passed by the Coordination Council on 17 June 2025 and supported by the United Transitional Cabinet and the Office of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.  The Memorandum demonstrates a unified commitment of the democratic forces to ending capital punishment in Belarus in all cases and under all circumstances.

The Supreme Court yesterday rejected an appeal from death row prisoner Cheng Wu-sung (鄭武松) to suspend his execution. In September last year, the Constitutional Court issued Constitutional Judgement No. 8, which said that although the death penalty is constitutional, it should only be applied in “exceptional cases.” This led to Cheng filing for a retrial on the grounds that he could be rehabilitated. The constitutional judgement allows for the death penalty only for the “most serious” of premeditated crimes and if the case followed the strictest requirements of due process.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); June 17, 2025: Shapour Ashkani, a man on death row for murder, was executed in Shushtar Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Shushtar Prison, Khuzestan province, on 12 June 2025. His identity has been established as Shapour Ashkani. He was arrested eleven years ago and sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder. At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Journalist Liz Bruening recently wrote of her experience being present for an execution and her own family’s ties to tragedy in Arlington. Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of violence towards children and the process of an execution that some readers may find disturbing. In 2004, Alfred Bourgeois was convicted of torturing and murdering his toddler daughter at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi.  According to the prosecution in the case, Bourgeois had abused and neglected her before finally smashing her head against the inside of his truck. 

Virginia and Georgia legislators discuss financial implications, appeals process and more Capital punishment continues to be a contentious issue in the United States, where each state has the autonomy to determine which crimes warrant the death penalty. Among the 27 states with capital punishment laws, premeditated murder and murder with aggravating circumstances are commonly deemed capital crimes.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The Alabama man accused of killing 18 people in 2023 and 2024, including two mass shootings, will go to trial in April next year, a judge ruled Tuesday. But his attorneys have raised concerns about whether it will be possible to select impartial jurors from a city still reeling from record levels of violence last year. Damien McDaniel, 22, faces murder charges related to 18 deaths in Birmingham, Alabama — including eight people killed at two separate mass shootings in July and September. Jefferson County District Judge Shanta Owens also ruled that prosecutors could pursue the death penalty against McDaniel under Alabama law.

State asks for Robert Roberson to be executed on Oct. 16, 2025; Roberson's lawyers file motion to object Lawyers representing a Texas death row inmate who avoided capital punishment last year are objecting to the state's request for a new execution date. On Monday, the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton requested that the Anderson County District Court schedule 58-year-old Robert Roberson's execution for Oct. 16. In its five-page motion, Paxton's office said that because the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s top criminal court, has previously denied appeals in Roberson’s case, “the criteria for setting an execution have been met.”

HANOI: A court in southern Vietnam has sentenced three drug traffickers to death for smuggling and selling more than 50 kilos of heroin and synthetic drugs, state media reported Wednesday. Communist Vietnam has some of the toughest drug laws in the world with courts routinely handing out death sentences for drug convictions. After the one-day trial in Long An province, 35-year-old gang leader Pham Trung Hieu and his three accomplices were found guilty of trafficking.

Kim Jong-un has erased a top military commander and another senior official from state photos after the North Korean leader was reportedly left fuming over a failed warship launch.  Navy Commander Admiral Kim Myong Sil and and shipyard boss Hong Kil Ho were airbrushed from images showing them with their leader back in March, sparking speculation that they may have been executed. Original snaps showed Admiral King and the shipyard boss gathered next to the North Korean leader as he inspected the ship.  But now, in a move reminiscent of Joseph Stalin's tactics to erase his enemies from Soviet history, the officials have seemingly disappeared from the photos that were originally broadcast on state television. 

According to Governor Mike Braun, Indiana has deplet­ed the sup­ply of pen­to­bar­bi­tal it uses in its lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions. Given that the last of the dos­es pur­chased in December 2024 expired and went unused, Gov. Braun does not intend to renew the state’s sup­ply. According to ear­li­er report­ing by the Indiana Capital Chronicle, the Indiana Department of Correction (IDC) spent $900,000 on pen­to­bar­bi­tal in late 2024 in prepa­ra­tion for the exe­cu­tion of Joseph Corcoran. Gov. Braun said this amount­ed to three dos­es of pen­to­bar­bi­tal at $300,000 each. In explain­ing his deci­sion not to make fur­ther pur­chas­es, the Governor cit­ed con­cerns over the high price tag and short shelf-life. ​“I think, $300,000 a pop that has a 90-day shelf life — I’m not going to be putting it on the shelf and then let­ting them expire,” Gov. Braun told reporters. 

Indonesian police have arrested three Australian men for a shooting incident that killed a fourth at a villa on the resort island of Bali, its police chief said on Wednesday. Police detained on Tuesday the three suspects whom they accused of having “prepared and executed” the shooting, Bali police chief Daniel Adityajaya said. “We have arrested three suspects,” he told reporters, adding that they had been charged with premeditated murder and could face the death penalty if it was proved.

Two of the six federal counts can carry the death penalty, something federal prosecutors have not sought in a Minnesota-based case since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976 The man charged with killing a prominent Minnesota lawmaker and wounding another could face something that is a rarity for Minnesota but could become more common under the Trump administration: the death penalty. Minnesota abolished capital punishment in 1911, and the state's last execution was a botched hanging in 1906. But federal prosecutors announced charges against Vance Boelter on Monday that can carry the death penalty.