Death Penalty News

The move is being made to narrow the scope of application of the country’s harshest punishment in line with progressive legislative trends. HANOI – The Government has proposed retaining the death penalty for only four offences: treason, murder, terrorism and illegal production of narcotics instead of the current 10. The move is being made to narrow the scope of the country’s harshest punishment in line with progressive legislative trends. The proposal was put forward on Thursday morning by Minister of Public Security General Lương Tam Quang, who, authorised by the Prime Minister, presented a summary of the Government’s submission on the draft revised Penal Code as the National Assembly continued its first extraordinary session.

Japan on Friday announced the execution of a man convicted of killing five people after setting fire to an Osaka pachinko parlor in 2009, the first execution by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi 's government as the country faces growing calls for more transparency and the abolition of capital punishment. The Justice Ministry said Sunao Takami, 58, was hanged to death earlier Friday. Takami in 2009 set fire to the crowded pachinko parlor in Osaka by spreading gasoline and throwing a lit match, engulfing the building, killing five and injuring 10 others, Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi said.

Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has posted a video of the construction of a gallows complex where Palestinians convicted of terror offenses will be hanged. Ben-Givr said the new execution site would be equipped with viewing booths for families of victims to watch the hangings. He posted the video on social media of a visit he had made to the unidentified location, where he can be seen pointing at foundations being laid and saying it was where “terrorists will be executed." Photographs in the Israeli media showed a bulldozer and heavy construction work in a cordoned-off area, reportedly close to a prison.

Francis Clifford Smith was given his last meal eight times. But after being spared execution each time, he went on to be regarded as the longest-serving prisoner in the US before dying in June at 101 years old. Convicted of murder in 1950 when he was 25, he always maintained his innocence, those who knew him told the BBC. Andrius Banevicius, the public information officer for Connecticut's Department of Correction, recounted how Smith used to feed the birds while in Osborn Prison, earning him the nickname The Birdman of Osborn.

Iranian authorities executed Ghaem Hosseini, also known as Arian, a 20-year-old Afghan national arrested in connection with the January protests, at Isfahan Central Prison. Hosseini was a defendant in the “Isfahan Alikhani Square” case and is the fifth defendant in the case to be executed. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, authorities carried out Hosseini’s execution at dawn on Thursday, August 20, 2026. He was the maternal cousin of Gol Mohammad Mohammadi, another Afghan national and defendant in the same case who was previously executed.

Sections 365 and 365A of the colonial-era Penal Code still criminalises homosexuality. Penalties include up to 10 years in prison, though no one has been prosecuted yet under the said provisions. Yet, the discriminatory law fosters social stigma and creates a permissive context for abuse. Criminalisation also stands in the way of any meaningful measures for equal opportunities for LGBTQ communities in employment and social life, effectively entrenching discrimination against citizens based on sexual identity and orientation. The bitter irony is that some of the most powerful political bigwigs of the country were openly gay, others lived a lie, and either way, the public did not care about their private lives. Yet the dubious anomaly in the colonial-era law has persisted under successive governments. 

Palm Beach County Clerk of Court Michael Caruso, a former Republican state legislator who previously backed the death penalty for adults convicted of sexually battering children under 12, was arrested Tuesday on five felony child sex abuse charges. The 67-year-old married father of seven who was appointed by Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis faces five felony counts: kidnapping, child molestation, lewd exhibition, luring or enticing a child, and child abuse causing mental injury, an arrest affidavit shows.

Florida executed its 13th death row prisoner of the year Tuesday evening amid the state’s aggressive use of the death penalty championed by Governor Ron DeSantis. William Frances Silvia, 61, who was convicted of fatally shooting his estranged wife and injuring his mother-in-law in 2006, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. after receiving the lethal three-drug injection at Florida State Prison.  At 6 p.m. Tuesday, Silvia was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the curtain to the death chamber went up.  He remained relatively motionless with his eyes and mouth open throughout most of the execution while a priest sat at his feet and prayed.

In March, the Knesset approved legislation that calls for the execution of Palestinians convicted by a military court of killing Israelis Israeli authorities are preparing a prison wing—replete with an execution chamber—designated specifically for Palestinian prisoners convicted of murder, Israel’s i24NEWS channel reported Tuesday. The move comes after the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) approved legislation in March that calls for the execution of Palestinian prisoners convicted by a military court of murdering Israelis.

The trial of a man who admitted to suffocating his estranged wife and her 2 young daughters with a plastic bag more than a decade ago began Monday morning with jury selection.  Sandwiched by his attorneys, Alberto Sierra, 42, sat in a navy blue sweater as dozens of prospective jurors shuffled into the largest courtroom in the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building in Miami.  In 2 weeks, hundreds of the jurors will be questioned on their thoughts about the death penalty.  The pool will be whittled down to a 12-person jury that will be tasked with deciding whether Sierra should be condemned to Florida’s death row or sentenced to life in prison. 

Prosecutors asked the court to sentence Kim So-young, who was indicted and detained on charges including killing two people with drug-laced drinks, to death. On the 18th, according to legal sources, at the sentencing hearing for defendant Kim So-young in the "Gangbuk motel serial murder case," held before the Seoul Northern District Court Criminal Division 14 (Presiding Judge Oh Byung-hee, senior judge), prosecutors sought the death penalty. They also requested, among other measures, a 30-year electronic monitoring order.

Hours before the State of Florida is scheduled to execute 61-year-old William Frances Silvia , his spiritual advisor plans to hold a virtual press conference to publicly release Silvia’s full final statement. The spiritual advisor, Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood, is scheduled to meet with Silvia from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesday, August 18, at Florida State Prison. Following the visit, Hood will host a press conference to read Silvia’s statement in full. Silvia chose to release his statement early to ensure his words are shared at length rather than being limited to the brief final remarks typically allowed inside the execution chamber.

Ammon News—A Syrian court on Tuesday handed a death sentence to Wassim al-Assad, who appeared in the dock, a cousin of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, who was himself sentenced to death in absentia last week. The 46-year-old relative of al-Assad was convicted over atrocities committed under his cousin’s rule during the country’s nearly 14-year civil war. Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan said Assad’s cousin was convicted of multiple murders and “murder accompanied by torture and brutality... classified as crimes against humanity and war crimes,” adding that “he is therefore sentenced to death.”

William Frances Silvia, 61, was sentenced to death after being convicted of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder for the deadly 2006 attack on Patricia Silvia, along with her mother, Betty Woodard. MIAMI — A Florida man convicted of fatally shooting his estranged wife and wounding his mother-in-law is set to be executed Tuesday, August 18, continuing the state’s aggressive use of the death penalty in Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ‘ final term. William Frances Silvia, 61, would be the 13th prisoner put to death this year in Florida, which has two more executions scheduled in September and has carried out more than half of the nation’s 22 executions so far in 2026.

For a decade, Alabama death row inmate Jeffrey Lee has been clear that he does not want to be executed by lethal injection . But that is what awaits him on September 17 . He faces that prospect because the state has been enjoined from using nitrogen hypoxia , the alternative execution method he preferred, to put him to death. Having failed to show that its nitrogen hypoxia protocol is constitutionally acceptable, Alabama wants a do-over to force Lee to die by lethal injection as a result of its own failure. It should not get one. Alabama should only be able to put Lee to death if it can fix nitrogen hypoxia’s constitutional defects.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has refused to scrap hanging as the method of executing the death penalty, but said the issue can be looked at again if new scientific or medical evidence shows that another method causes less pain. The court also said the Centre can set up an expert panel to examine whether another method of execution would reduce pain and protect the dignity of death row prisoners. Why was a plea filed against hanging as a method of execution? The petition was filed by senior advocate Rishi Malhotra, who challenged the law that provides for hanging as the method of executing a death sentence, according to a LiveLaw report. Section 354(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure says that a person sentenced to death should be "hanged by the neck till he is dead." Malhotra's plea sought to replace hanging with other methods, including lethal injection, shooting, electrocution or a gas chamber. He argued that hanging can cause prolonged pain and suffering and violates...

Starting next summer, Georgia’s highest court will no longer routinely hear appeals in murder cases. The decision was announced Thursday as part of a concurring opinion from Chief Justice Nels Peterson that was tied to a murder case out of Fulton County, Coleman v. The State , though it was not clear why Peterson’s opinion was attached to that case. Murder conviction appeals, which account for more than half of the Georgia Supreme Court’s published cases, will be heard in the Georgia Court of Appeals starting July 2027.

Iranian authorities have executed Mohammad Afrookhteh, a Baloch prisoner from Sib and Suran, and Mohammad Yousefi Azad, from Eslamshahr, in separate cases at Zahedan and Zanjan central prisons. According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Mohammad (Cheragh) Afrookhteh, 30, was executed at Zahedan Central Prison in the early hours of Sunday, August 16, 2026. Informed sources said Afrookhteh had been arrested three years earlier on charges of “premeditated murder” and was subsequently sentenced to death.

Hengaw – Sunday, August 16, 2026-- Iranian authorities executed Shahram Sadeghi, who was arrested in connection with the January 2026 protests, at a prison in Karaj, Alborz province. Mizan, the Iranian judiciary’s official news agency, reported that Sadeghi was executed at dawn on August 16, 2026, but did not specify the prison where the execution took place. The Hengaw Organization for Human Rights has learned that Sadeghi’s case was heard by the Karaj Revolutionary Court, which sentenced him to death and ordered the confiscation of all his property on the charge of “operational activities in support of Israel, the United States, and hostile groups and countries,” under Article 1 of Iran’s law on increased punishment for espionage and cooperation with Israel and hostile states against national security and interests.

Tennessee and Oklahoma have put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men in one day. Tennessee and Oklahoma put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other Thursday, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men by lethal injection in one day for the first time since 2010. The Tennessee man was executed for killing a maid at a motel in 1985, and the Oklahoma man for killing his girlfriend in 2003. In Alabama, a man was put to death Thursday evening for killing a 5-year-old girl he had paid her mother to abuse.

Oklahoma has carried out 1 of 3 executions set for the same day in the United States in another sign of the resurgence of the death penalty in the country.  Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.  He was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of his common-law wife in 2003 at their Oklahoma City home. He admitted to police he shot her twice during an argument.  Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, did not fight for his life, stunning his attorneys in July when he told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that he didn't want clemency. "It's time for me to pay for what I did," he said. 

The state has spent millions of dollars over decades to execute a seriously ill man who was already incarcerated. The state of Tennessee executed death row inmate Darrell Hines Thursday morning, according to an advocacy group.  No formal announcement of the execution has been issued by state leaders yet. The execution was slated for 10 a.m. Thursday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. [DPN update] Hines was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. CDT. His last meal was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, corn, fries, biscuits, a chicken sandwich, chocolate chip cake, and sweet tea.

Barring any last-minute interventions, the Tennessee Department of Correction will execute Anthony Darrell Hines by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville Thursday morning. This week, two courts had the opportunity to halt the execution: the federal court in Middle Tennessee and the U.S. Supreme Court. Gov. Bill Lee announced Tuesday he personally would not prevent the execution. “After deliberate consideration of Anthony Darrell Hines’ request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene,” he said in a written statement. The U.S. Supreme Court has not granted a stay or reprieve.

The Iranian regime is increasingly using death sentences, corporal punishment, and judicial persecution against women—not only to silence dissent but also to intimidate a society demanding change. The Iranian regime has long viewed women as central to the country’s struggle for freedom—and therefore as central targets of repression. The nationwide uprising of 2022 fundamentally altered the political landscape, demonstrating that Iranian women were no longer merely participants in protest movements but among their principal organizers and symbols. Since then, the authorities have steadily intensified their campaign against women, expanding the use of executions, imprisonment, corporal punishment, and judicial intimidation.

Iranian authorities executed at least three prisoners, including two Turks, identified as Amrollah Dousti, Hojjat Khayat, and Yousef Bagheri, in Tabriz and Zanjan Central Prisons. Dousti and Khayat were executed on drug-related charges, while Bagheri was executed for “premeditated murder.” According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Dousti, 40, from Bandar Abbas and a father of two, and Khayat, 51, from Tabriz and a father of three, were executed in Tabriz Central Prison on Sunday, August 9, 2026.

Lebanon’s parliament on Tuesday abolished the death penalty, making it the first country in the Middle East to replace capital punishment with a sentence of life imprisonment with hard labour.  The majority of Lebanon's 128-member parliament voted in favour of ending the death penalty, with the exception of the parliamentary bloc of Hezbollah.  Justice Minister Adel Nassar called the abolition "historic," adding that the spectre of capital punishment had previously prevented Beirut from obtaining the extradition of suspects from countries where it has been outlawed.

Alabama is preparing to execute Jeremy Williams, who pled guilty to the 2021 rape and murder of five-year-old Kamarie Holland.  The execution is scheduled for Thursday (August 13) at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama.  Williams, who is 41, requested the death penalty and waived his right to appeal, making this the first execution in Alabama this year.

Kolthum Akbari, an Iranian woman widely dubbed the “Black Widow,” was convicted of serial murders of elderly men she married, often temporarily. Official accounts generally center on 11 murders (plus one attempted murder), though Akbari herself gave varying figures and investigations suggested she had many more marriages.  The sentencing occurred primarily in September 2025 in Mazandaran Province, with ongoing reporting and updates into 2026. The 56- to 59-year-old killer confessed to killing at least 11 elderly men after temporarily or officially marrying them; Iranian authorities have linked her to additional marriages and possible further victims.

DAMASCUS, Syria (DPN)— A Syrian court on Tuesday sentenced former President Bashar Assad and his younger brother, Maher Assad, to death in absentia for premeditated murder of multiple people including children; torture; arbitrary detention, and crimes against humanity committed during Syria’s conflict. The Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus also sentenced Atef Najib, Assad’s maternal cousin and former head of Political Security in the southern province of Daraa, to death. Najib appeared in court wearing a prisoner’s uniform and standing inside a cage as the judge read the sentence. The court ordered that Bashar and Maher Assad be pursued internationally.

The signatories plan to submit the petition, which was opened on July 20, to the district court ahead of a hearing on Aug. 31. More than 47,000 people have signed a petition calling for the death penalty for Jang Yun-gi, who allegedly murdered a high schooler in Gwangju, according to a local memorial advocacy group on Tuesday. The online petition, first posted on July 20, has garnered a total of 47,268 signatories as of Monday. The petition was prepared by a group with a name that translates roughly to Gwangju-Jeonnam Memorial Solidarity and the family of the 16-year-old girl who was killed.

Iranian authorities executed Marzieh Nayeri, a 24-year-old woman who had been forced into marriage as a child, at Qazvin Central Prison, also known as Choubindar Prison. She had been sentenced to death for the murder of her husband. According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Nayeri was executed at dawn on Aug. 8, 2026, at Qazvin Central Prison. Sources familiar with the case said that in late September 2021, when Nayeri was 18, a business associate of her husband named Alireza attempted to sexually assault her after consuming alcohol in the presence of her husband. Nayeri injured the man with a kitchen knife while defending herself and subsequently killed her husband. After four days in hiding, she sought refuge with her brother, who later turned her over to police.

Nearly 100 prominent Iranians, including artists and filmmakers, have been summoned by security agencies or judicial authorities after speaking out against a new wave of executions, particularly the public hanging of protesters in Isfahan, a rights activist said. More than 20 of those summoned were well-known film and television actors, civil rights activist Mehdi Mahmoudian reported Saturday on his Telegram channel Khabaraneha. The report said those targeted had been among public figures posting against the executions under the hashtag “No to executions.”

Dr. Mark Fowler assisted in the failed execution of a Tennessee prisoner. Physicians are meant to heal patients—why is he working in the death chamber? Mark Fowler, a physician with 25 years’ experience, stepped beneath the bright lights and approached the middle-aged man lying on a gurney. Around him, people in medical gowns prepared needles and sterile tubing. It had all the appearances of a hospital setting. Fowler had been called in to help establish an IV line through which the 57-year-old man, Tony Carruthers, would be injected with pharmaceutical drugs. The team had struggled to find a vein, so Fowler was summoned to set a central line—an intravenous catheter inserted into the major vein below the collarbone.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued execution reprieves for three death row inmates on Friday. In a statement, DeWine said he issued reprieves for Keith LaMar, Scott Group, and Davel Chinn, all of whom were set to be executed early next year. LaMar was scheduled to be executed on Jan. 13, 2027. He was convicted of aggravated murder for the deaths of five inmates during a 1993 riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution in Lucasville. He received the death penalty for four of the killings. His new execution date is Jan. 13, 2030. Watch the latest NBC4 headlines in the video player above.

Stone tablets recount a corruption case so widespread that it became a capital offense in 480 CE. Archaeologists in western Turkey recently discovered a detailed account of 1,600-year-old tax fraud so brazen that ancient Rome made it a deadly offense. Initially believed to be funerary ode inscriptions, the Late Antiquity stone tablets actually provide vital missing information in a notably widespread corruption case that spanned more than a decade—and even implicated the estate of Emperor Valentinian III’s daughter, Placidia.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — The Tennessee Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request by a death row inmate to force state corrections officials to disclose whether the same physician involved in a failed execution attempt in May will be used when he is scheduled to be put to death on Aug. 13. The court rejected a legal request filed by attorneys for Darrell Hines, a death row inmate scheduled to be executed on Aug. 13, 2026. PREVIOUS COVERAGE | Tenn. court orders disclosure of execution physician identity in upcoming execution

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 6 August 2026: At least 71 people were executed in July 2026, including 36 for murder, 26 for drug-related offences, eight for security-related charges, and one for rape. Six protesters were amongst those executed in July.  In the first seven months of 2026, IHRNGO has recorded 444 executions, including 12 women, 17 foreign nationals, and 80 ethnic minorities. The 2026 executions also include 28 protesters (26 from the January protests and two from “Woman, Life, Freedom”), 13 political prisoners affiliated with banned opposition groups, and 12 espionage defendants.

County Attorney Brad Miller said Aug. 6 that the nature of the attack and both men's past criminal records meet the strict legal bar required for execution under Arizona law. FLORENCE, Ariz. - Pinal County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against two inmates accused of violently killing a fellow prisoner behind bars, officials announced Thursday. Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller filed a Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty against Pete Van Winkle and Tracy Hampton in connection with the fatal attack on Kenneth Thompson. 

Though many said they supported capital punishment, an almost equal number of people conceded they don't think it deters crime. (CN) — An eye for an eye, say the two-thirds of Americans who support punishing murderers with death, according to research published by Pew on Thursday. A little less than a third of Americans, 32%, oppose capital punishment entirely, standing in line with Gandhi's spin on the age-old aphorism, “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” “As the Trump administration and some states seek to expand the application of the death penalty, about two-thirds of Americans (66%) now favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, while nearly a third (32%) oppose it,” researchers wrote in the report.

WILMINGTON, Del. — More than three decades after Jermaine “Marlow” Wright was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in a case with no physical evidence tying him to the crime and evidence favorable to his defense withheld by prosecutors, a Delaware court has issued him a Certificate of Innocence and ordered his 1992 murder conviction expunged. The Death Penalty Information Center identified Wright as the 203rd person exonerated from death row in the United States since 1973 and the second person exonerated from Delaware’s death row. Superior Court Judge Calvin Scott issued the order July 23, according to the organization.

When people think about capital punishment, their attention is usually fixed on its two most visible moments, when a death sentence is handed down and an execution is conducted. But behind the scenes, many other moving parts must be in place for the death penalty system to function. Among the most important of them is the protocol that lays out the steps that must be followed when the state puts someone to death. If the protocol is sloppy or deficient, it will likely lead to problems in carrying out death sentences. Not surprisingly, problems with execution protocols are especially likely to arise when a state adopts a new execution method.

The public execution of two protesters in Isfahan has renewed calls for the German city of Freiburg to end its 25-year twinning with the Iranian city, with activists arguing the partnership lends legitimacy to a state punishing dissent with the death penalty. The demands follow the executions of Amirhossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi in Isfahan's Alikhani Square in late July. Witnesses reported clashes between security forces and people who gathered to protest the hangings. Freiburg, a university city in southwestern Germany, is the only municipality in the country to maintain a formal partnership with an Iranian city. Iranian activists have long argued that the arrangement, established in 2000, legitimizes the Islamic Republic despite its human rights record.

A Tennessee death row inmate and his chosen spiritual advisor have filed a federal lawsuit against the Tennessee Department of Correction, alleging state prison policies violate their religious rights by preventing a private confession before execution.  The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, does not challenge Tennessee’s authority to carry out executions. Instead, it asks whether condemned inmates have a constitutional and federally protected right to privately practice their faith before the state carries out a death sentence.  John Michael Bane has spent decades on Tennessee’s death row after a Shelby County jury convicted him of 1st-degree felony murder in the 1988 robbery and killing of 60-year-old Royce Frazier.

A Florida judge denied a request from a convicted serial killer to speak in court as she sentenced him to death on Tuesday.  A jury convicted Demorris Hunter, 60, of 1st-degree murder and theft in the death of Theresa Ann Green, 38, who was strangled and left in the trunk of her car.  “Demorris Andy Hunter, you have not only forfeited your right to dwell among us as a free man, but by your actions and under the law of the State of Florida, you have forfeited your right to live, as well,” Judge Lisa Munyon said as she handed down the sentence Tuesday morning. 

A Tarrant County judge has denied Tanner Horner’s request for a new trial after he was sentenced to death for the 2022 murder of 7-year-old Athena Strand.  Judge George Gallagher declined to sign an order granting Horner’s motion, which automatically resulted in the request being denied.  Horner’s attorneys argued that extensive media coverage surrounding the case affected potential witnesses and prevented him from receiving a fair trial. The defense claimed the publicity caused key witnesses to refuse to testify.