Death Penalty News

BOISE, Idaho — Idaho’s prison system has nearly completed execution chamber upgrades to carry out the death penalty by firing squad as the state’s lead method and will have a team of riflemen ready to go by the time a state law takes effect this summer. As part of the transition, the Idaho Department of Correction hopes to limit participation by its officers as the shooting of condemned people in prison to death is prioritized over lethal injection. Toward that effort, prisoner leadership sought to implement a push-button technology to avoid needing IDOC workers to pull the triggers.

SPARTANBURG — A 59-year-old man sentenced to death for killing a state trooper in Greenville County in 2000 can’t be executed because of a mental illness that’s left him incoherent and believing he’s immortal, a Circuit Court judge has ruled. John Richard Wood is the first condemned inmate in South Carolina found not competent to be executed since the state restarted capital punishment in September 2024. The seven executions since then include three men who chose to die by firing squad — the latest in November. Wood, convicted 24 years ago, was among death row inmates in line to receive a death warrant after exhausting their regular appeals.

A Ugandan-American man was sentenced to death on Thursday over the murder of four young children he stabbed to death at a kindergarten in Uganda's capital. Christopher Okello Onyum was arrested on 2 April as he tried to flee the daycare centre in Kampala, where he killed the tiny children, aged between 15 months to two-and-a-half years. Prosecutors said Onyum, who holds Ugandan and US citizenship, confessed to the crime, believing the "human sacrifice" would help him become rich, although he eventually pleaded not guilty in court.

Tehran executed 21-year-old karate athlete Sassan Azadvar early Thursday after protest arrest, as UN and rights groups warn of a surge in executions and mass detentions since the start of the Iran war. Iran’s judiciary has confirmed the execution of another detainee arrested during the recent protests, as the UN and other international human rights organisations reported a sharp rise in executions and arrests since the start of the Iran war in late February. Sassan Azadvar Joonqani, a 21-year-old karate athlete detained during the early January protests, was executed early Thursday morning at Dastgerd Prison in Isfahan, according to Iranian media.

Death penalty abolitionist and social justice activist Kokila Annamalai Parvathi was charged on April 23, over her refusal two-and-a-half years ago to comply with a government censorship order. As previously reported by Green Left, Annamalai defied a directive under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), to issue a “correction” to an online post she and the Transformative Justice Collective (TJC) made about the 2024 execution of Azwan bin Bohari. The post explained that Azwan had been on death row since 2019 after being arrested under the Misuse of Drugs Act four years earlier. It pointed out many inconsistencies and injustices in the way his execution had been handled by the state.

The U.S. Supreme Court had denied Broadnax’s final appeal to temporarily stop his execution and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott did not grant a last minute reprieve. James Broadnax died by lethal injection Thursday evening for the 2008 robbery and murders of two Christian music producers — after his cousin confessed to being the shooter earlier this year. Broadnax was executed minutes before 7 p.m. Thursday, April 30 in Huntsville, Texas. Broadnax’s legal team shared in a statement his words from earlier in the day.

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man convicted of beating and choking his brother’s 13-year-old stepdaughter to death nearly 50 years ago was executed Thursday evening. James Ernest Hitchcock, 70, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of the July 1976 killing of Cynthia Driggers. The curtain to the death chamber opened promptly at the 6 p.m. execution time. Hitchcock’s entire body was covered in a sheet up to his head. He stared at the ceiling as the team warden made a call, then gave his final statement.