Death Penalty News

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 29 August 2026: Yavar Alizadeh, Hossein Khalilian, Mojtaba Vahedi and Davod Tarkhan were executed in a group hanging in Tabriz Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, four men were hanged in Tabriz Central Prison on 29 August 2026. Two of the men were sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for separate murders by the Criminal Court. Their identities have been established as Yavar Alizadeh, a 28-year-old welder, and Hossein Khalilian, a 40-year-old florist. Yavar was arrested four years ago, and Hossein was arrested for the murder of his cousin seven years ago.

Singer D4vd is set to be arraigned on charges including murder in downtown Los Angeles on Monday in connection with last year's killing of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez as the high-profile case progresses to a trial. The 21-year-old, whose real name is David Anthony Burke, has previously pleaded not guilty to the charges. LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman is set to speak to reporters after the hearing. Hochman has previously stated that his office is working to determine whether it'll pursue the death penalty should Burke be convicted.

According to rights groups' claims, more than 500 people have been killed by the regime since the protests erupted in January. Ten individuals accused of participating in the January protests have been sentenced to death, while another six received prison sentences of up to 25 years, according to Iranian media reports on Sunday. The sentences were handed down by Judges Morteza Barati and Mohammadreza Tavakoli of Branch 1 of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court, according to the Iran Human Rights Society, an independent advocacy group and information network.

South Korean prosecutors have asked the court to sentence 23-year-old Jang Yun-gi to death. He is accused of murdering 17-year-old schoolgirl Lee Chae-won in the city of Gwangju.  The Gwangju District Court is due to announce its verdict in the case on September 30, Korea Herald reports. Details of the charges According to the prosecution, on May 5, Jang attempted to abduct Lee Chae-won in order to sexually assault her and then fatally stabbed her as she was returning home. 

Iranian authorities have executed at least two prisoners, identified as Shafi Shokati and Ali Zibaei, at Shiraz Central Prison (Adelabad Prison) and Semnan Central Prison. The two men had been sentenced to death in separate cases involving murder and drug-related charges. According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Shafi Shokati, a 39-year-old Baloch man and father of four, was executed at Shiraz Central Prison at dawn on August 24, 2026.

The president has raised the possibility that some of the fires may have been criminally set and ordered authorities to investigate their causes and identify those responsible. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has ordered amendments to the country’s penal code to allow the death penalty to be carried out against people convicted of deliberately setting forest fires, after a wave of devastating blazes killed 12 people and caused extensive damage across the country.

The court’s decision came a little more than two months after Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita asked the justices to schedule Weisheit’s execution. State attorneys argued Weisheit had exhausted his state and federal appeals, had no active stay of execution, and could lawfully be put to death. The inmate’s attorneys opposed setting a date, saying they needed more time to pursue available legal proceedings and possible executive clemency. The defense additionally pointed to public records that it said showed the Indiana Department of Correction lacked the drugs needed to conduct an execution and had no lawful source from which to obtain them.

OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has scheduled the execution of Air Force veteran and longtime death row prisoner Jim Pavatt for Nov. 12, as his attorneys continue to challenge his conviction and contend that prosecutors relied on false arguments, disputed forensic evidence and an alleged confession they later described as bogus. Pavatt, who served nearly 22 years in the Air Force and rose to the rank of master sergeant, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2001 killing of Rob Andrew in Oklahoma City. His execution is scheduled for the day after Veterans Day.

The ruling throws another wrench into the long-running death penalty case involving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the deadliest U.S. terrorist strikes. A U.S. military judge has thrown out Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's 2007 confession to FBI agents about his alleged lead role in the 9/11 attacks, ruling that it wasn’t given voluntarily and can’t be used against him at trial. The Aug. 28 ruling by the trial judge, Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Schrama, throws yet another wrench into the long-running death penalty case on the eve of the 25th anniversary of America’s deadliest terrorist strike that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Iranian authorities have executed at least seven prisoners, including a woman who had been subjected to forced marriage, two Gilak men and a Kurdish man, across prisons in Khorramabad, Sari, Rasht, Yazd and Isfahan. The prisoners, Arezou Rostad, Mostafa Vosoughi, Masoud Nemati, Esmaeil Ajami, Hedayat Jamalzadeh, Emad Sheikhi and Amir Danaei, had been sentenced to death in separate murder and drug-related cases. According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Mostafa Vosoughi, a 27-year-old Kurdish man from Rivasan village in Delfan (Nurabad) County, was executed at Khorramabad Central Prison at dawn on August 26, 2026. He had been arrested three years earlier on a murder charge and subsequently sentenced to death.

A U.S. air ‌force judge on Wednesday ordered Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, to face trial before a military tribunal in June 2028, along with three co-defendants. The trial-scheduling order entered by the air force's Lt.-Col. Michael Schrama ​marked the latest milestone in a military prosecution beset by ​two decades of legal deadlock surrounding the four detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia prison officials plan to execute a man next month who was convicted of fatally shooting two real estate agents in Atlanta’s suburbs more than two decades ago. Stacey Humphreys, 53, was convicted of malice murder in the 2003 killings of 33-year-old Cyndi Williams and 21-year-old Lori Brown. He is set to receive a lethal injection at the state prison near Jackson at 7 p.m. on Sept. 16, according to the Department of Corrections. Humphreys would be the first person executed in Georgia this year. The death penalty in the state has largely been tied up in litigation over an agreement related to the coronavirus pandemic that defense lawyers contend temporarily shields many death row residents from execution. The last execution in the state was in March 2024.

Iran allegedly plotted to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s eldest son, Yair, while he was living in South Florida, Newsmax reported on Wednesday, citing a US law enforcement source familiar with the matter. Israeli intelligence learned of the alleged plot in December and alerted US authorities, according to the source. Iranian operatives were believed to be in the Miami area and to have conducted surveillance of Yair Netanyahu’s home and movements. The 35-year-old, who lived in Hallandale Beach and was accompanied by an Israeli security detail, was reportedly instructed to leave immediately. He departed without collecting his belongings and returned to Israel, where he now lives.

A court in Iran has sentenced Leila Abolhassani, a 43-year-old mother of two teenage daughters detained during the January protests in the central city of Shahin Shahr, to death on charges of “waging war against God,” a source familiar with her case told Iran International. The source said Abolhassani was only filming a supermarket fire when she was arrested on the evening of January 8. Branch 5 of Isfahan’s Revolutionary Court nevertheless sentenced her to death on charges of participating in setting fire to the store. Abolhassani, who worked as a nail technician, was transferred following her arrest to Dowlatabad Prison in Isfahan, where she has been held for more than seven months.

Hossein Nazari, a 25-year-old citizen arrested during the January protests, has been sentenced to death by Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Mashhad. HRANA news agency reported on Wednesday, August 26, that the verdict was handed down in July and that Nazari is currently being held in Mashhad’s Vakilabad Prison. The court charged him with “communicating with hostile states and groups” and “assembly and collusion to commit crimes against national security.”  No details have been provided regarding the specific evidence cited by the court, the underlying acts supporting these charges, Nazari’s access to independent legal representation, or the legal proceedings of his trial.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a death warrant for Curtis. W. Beasley, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1998 for beating a Dundee woman to death with a hammer three years earlier. Beasley's execution by lethal injection is scheduled for Sept. 29, according to the warrant signed by DeSantis on Aug. 26. Since his conviction, Beasley, 77, of Haines City has maintained his innocence. The jury that recommended the judge impose a death sentence was not unanimous.

TAMPA, Fla. – Opening statements are underway in the capital murder trial of Billy Adams, the Tampa rapper known as “Ace N-H,” accused of killing 22-year-old Alana Sims while she was pregnant with his child. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Adams in connection with Sims’ January 30, 2023, killing. Sims’ mother, Shahlevi Sims, said the family lost both a daughter and an unborn child.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A man accused of killing clerks at two different stores in Tennessee over a three-day crime spree was arraigned in Crockett County Circuit Court Wednesday. District Attorney Frederick Agee told Judge Clayburn Peeples that the state will be seeking the death penalty against Corey Houge for the shooting death of Shahed Rana Moshsin, 36. Mohsin was killed during a robbery at the Safari Corner Market in Bells Sunday morning.

A death row inmate spent Monday in court so a lawyer could fight his death sentence, despite his own desire to die. In 2016, Scotty Ray Gardner was arrested for the murder of Susan Stubbs. His attorney says his desire to be executed was made clear during the months leading up to his conviction and sentencing. Public and private statements since Gardner's trial reaffirm his desire to be executed. Gardner has just finished his eighth year on death row. Meanwhile, his case is undergoing a standard appeals process. At the Faulkner County Courthouse in Conway on Monday, his new attorney Lee Short called Gardner's former attorney to the stand. Thomas Scott Brisendine represented Gardner in the initial 2018 murder trial.

Two more protesters detained during Iran’s nationwide demonstrations in January have been sentenced to death, US-based rights group HRANA reported, amid a rise in executions and capital sentences following the unrest. Hossein Nazari, 25, was sentenced to death by Branch One of the Revolutionary Court in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, HRANA reported Wednesday. He is being held in the city’s Vakilabad Prison. HRANA said Nazari was convicted of “contact with hostile governments and groups” and “assembly and collusion to commit a crime against national security.” The sentence was issued in July.

BROOKSVILLE, Fla. — A Hernando County jury has recommended the death penalty for a 65-year-old man who was found guilty last week of raping and killing 12-year-old Jennifer Odom. Sentencing for Jeffrey Crum was held this week. Crum abducted Odom in 1993 after she stepped off her school bus in Pasco County. Her body was found in a Hernando County orange grove six days later.

Tyrone Noling's fate is now up to Ohio's governor. The state Parole Board on Tuesday recommended that Gov. Mike DeWine spare the 54-year-old from execution by commuting his sentence to life with a chance at parole as soon as 2029.  NBC News reports one of the eight board members backed a full pardon, which DeWine—who in June called for ending the death penalty in the state—can still grant.  Five members voted in favor of commuting his sentence, while two were against. The Akron Beacon Journal reports there is no deadline for DeWine's decision. Noling, who was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1990 murders of Cora and Bearnhardt Hartig, has long maintained his innocence; no physical evidence tied him to the crime, and the teen witnesses who implicated him later recanted, saying police pressured them.  The Ohio Innocence Project points to suppressed evidence and alternative suspects, including a man later executed for another killing. Noling, for his part, had requested a ...

Iranian authorities have executed nine prisoners, including two Lor and two Baloch men, across prisons in Zahedan, Borujerd, Yazd, Khorramabad, Isfahan and Mashhad. The prisoners, identified as Taha Khavari, Lotfollah Ahmadvand, Omid Shahouzehi, Ali Asghar Salarzehi, Saleh Zeidabadi, Merat Zeidabadi, Mahmoud Talebi, Hossein Hessari and Faramarz Baghbani, had been sentenced to death in separate cases on drug-related or murder charges.

At least six prisoners have been executed in recent days in Adelabad Prison in Shiraz and prisons in Semnan, Dehdasht, Dezful, and Ilam. They had previously been sentenced to death or qisas (retribution in kind) on charges related to “drug offenses” or “premeditated murder.” According to a report received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Bahram (Qahreman) Keshavarzi, from Beyza County, was executed in Adelabad Prison in Shiraz at dawn on Monday, August 24, 2026. He had previously been arrested on charges related to “drug offenses” and sentenced to death.

The rape and murder of a 3-year-old girl in Nepal has sparked widespread outrage and protests in the Himalayan country, with activists and politicians demanding tougher laws on rape, including calls for the death penalty to be imposed for the crime. The little girl went missing from her home in Bara, about 80 miles south of the capital Kathmandu, on August 16. Her body was found at an abandoned house three days later. Police registered a case of rape and murder and have arrested nine suspects, including a bus driver and a 16-year-old boy who worked on the same bus, who they accuse of luring the girl into the attack with chocolate.

"It is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, and must be stopped, NOW," U.S. President Donald Trump said  U.S. President Donald Trump expressed outrage on Tuesday (August 25, 2026) at the mounting number of executions in Iran of people allegedly involved in mass protests earlier this year before the West Asia war began.  "The failing Islamic Republic of Iran is not paying large segments of their military, while at the same time killing protesters, even when they are not protesting, at levels not seen before," he wrote on Truth Social. 

This is the seventh judgement among the 15 cases BANGKOK: The Criminal Court on Tuesday (Aug 25, 2026) sentenced Sararat 'Am Cyanide' Rangsiwuthaporn to death for the murder of Darinee 'Fah' Thepwi, marking the seventh judgement among the 15 cases brought against her. Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn is a Thai woman at the centre of a high-profile serial cyanide-poisoning case. She is accused of fatally poisoning multiple friends and acquaintances (mostly for financial motives linked to debts and fraud), with police linking her to about 15 poisonings (14 deaths and 1 survivor) across several provinces from around 2015 to 2023.  Police tied the pattern to heavy online gambling losses and large bank transactions. The cases all involve potassium cyanide allegedly mixed into food, drinks, or other consumables. 

KATHMANDU, AUGUST 24—Members of Parliament from across the party lines in the House of Representatives today called for reforms in laws, including capital punishment for rapists after the rape and murder of three-year-old Garima Chaudhary in Bara.  While acknowledging that capital punishment conflicts with constitutional guarantees and Nepal's international human rights commitments, lawmakers argued that Parliament must have the legislative strength to amend laws in response to severe public outrage.  The three-year-old went missing from her home in Dasdhure Tol, Jitpursimara Sub-Metropolitan City-1, on the morning of August 16. After her mother, Manmati Chaudhary searched for her unsuccessfully for over three hours, local police were alerted. Her body was recovered two days later in a nearby abandoned house. 

Three prisoners, including a Kurdish man and a woman, have been executed at Karaj Central Prison in separate cases.  Two of the prisoners, Sajjad Shirzadi and Farshad Safari, had been sentenced to death by the Iranian judiciary on charges of “premeditated murder.” According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, a woman was executed at Karaj Central Prison on Sunday morning, August 23, 2026. Her identity remains under investigation by Hengaw.

45-year-old Australian Simon Peter Carman, accused of murdering 17-year-old Thai citizen Thunchanok Donhomla, said he acted in self-defense. In an interview with ABC News Australia, recorded at Pattaya Remand Prison, he said he had tried to stop the girl, who, according to him, threatened him with a knife. Carman has been in custody for nearly two months and denies all four charges brought against him. They include murder, concealing a body, and abducting a minor for indecent purposes. If found guilty of murder, he could face the death penalty or life imprisonment.

Gurung said he understood the outrage and calls for the death penalty following the incident but noted that Nepal’s Constitution prohibits the provision of capital punishment.  Home Minister Sudhan Gurung has expressed sorrow over the heinous crime committed against a girl in Bara, saying that no weakness will be allowed in the investigation into the incident.  Gurung said in a social media post on Saturday morning that he was “extremely saddened and shocked” by the incident. “The pain of such a crime committed against a young girl is not just the pain of one family; it is the pain of our entire society,” he wrote. 

Iranian authorities have executed three prisoners, Ali Afzali and brothers Mostafa Karabi and Javad Karabi, at Sabzevar Central Prison in recent weeks.  The three had been sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court in a joint case involving drug-related charges. According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Ali Afzali, 33, from Sabzevar, was executed at dawn on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, at the prison in Razavi Khorasan Province.

Iranian authorities secretly executed Majid Adineh, who was arrested during the January 2026 protests and subsequently sentenced to death, at a prison in Alborz province. According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Adineh was executed at dawn on August 23, 2026, in Karaj.  Mizan, the Iranian judiciary’s official news agency, reported the execution and said Adineh had been arrested by forces of the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the Mohammadshahr area of Karaj during the January 2026 protests.

Iranian authorities executed Mohammadreza Rezaei Knkat, a 26-year-old Kurdish prisoner from Nurabad, Delfan, on drug-related charges in Khorramabad Central Prison. According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the execution was carried out at dawn on Saturday, August 22, 2026. Informed sources told Hengaw that Rezaei Knkat was arrested in 2019 at the age of 19 on drug-related charges and subsequently sentenced to death by the Iranian judiciary.

As a majority of the international community has abolished capital punishment. Japan and the U.S. are the only two countries in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations that put people to death. The execution of Takami Sunao—an arsonist whose 2009 attack in Osaka killed five—on August 21, 2026, was Japan’s first use of capital punishment in just over a year. Over a Decade from Sentencing to Execution Takami Sunao was executed on August 21, 2026 , for a 2009 arson attack at an Osaka pachinko parlor that killed five people. In July 2009, Takami poured gasoline on the floor of a pachinko parlor in Osaka and set it alight, killing 5 customers and staff members and injuring 10 more. While the defense argued that he was in a state of diminished capacity, the Supreme Court finalized his death sentence in February 2016. The execution took place 17 years after the initial crime and 10 and a half years after the death sentence was finalized.

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.