Death Penalty News

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey announced Tuesday that she has commuted the death sentence of Toforest Johnson, 53, to life imprisonment without parole, citing concerns about the reliability of the evidence against him. Mr. Johnson has long maintained his innocence in the 1995 shooting death of a Jefferson County deputy sheriff who was moonlighting as a security guard at a Birmingham hotel. “In the 27 executions I have overseen, I have said we review each case with careful consideration, taking into account all the facts,” the governor said in a press release. “When presented with Mr. Johnson’s case, I had concerns there was not enough direct evidence to carry out the most serious punishment, death.”

Jeffrey Weisheit set his house on fire in 2010, killing his girlfriend’s two young children he was watching.  The Indiana Parole Board will now make a recommendation in the coming days to Governor Mike Braun on whether to grant clemency to condemned killer Jeffrey Weisheit.  Jeffrey is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Nov. 5 for the 2010 murder of his girlfriend's 2 children in Vanderburgh County. 

The failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee calls attention to Ohio’s own death penalty laws, as the high-stakes governor race has the potential to end Gov. Mike DeWine’s almost eight-year-long freeze on any death penalty executions.  According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there are currently 112 inmates on death row in Ohio, with the last execution occurring in 2018.  DeWine has held an over 7-year-long, unofficial moratorium on state executions throughout his governorship by repeatedly issuing reprieves, which are temporary delays on executions. On Aug. 7, DeWine did so for 3 executions set to happen next year, pushing all of them to 2030.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 19 October 2026: Authorities at Ghezelhesar Prison have verbally notified drug death-row prisoners in Unit 2 that those from provincial towns and cities are to be transferred to their home jurisdictions, a move detainees fear is intended to facilitate their executions. This push to disperse the ward follows two successful strikes staged by Unit 2 prisoners in October 2025 and July 2026, which forced authorities to temporarily halt drug-related executions at the prison.

Matters have passed beyond legal concerns in the Islamic Republic. On the other hand, it is equally clear that as long as the Islamic Republic remains standing, regardless of the degree of instability and political lawlessness, the performance of its institutions must be examined. One cannot ignore and leave unspoken a reality that cuts to the bone and inflicts open wounds until the day of reckoning arrives. The institutions of this regime pretend to adhere to the rule of law before the international community. It would be naive to assume that without efforts to expose this lie, global circles will believe otherwise. Before thousands more protesting Iranians are killed, the struggle must continue so that international judicial bodies might better understand these criminals masquerading as lawful authorities, read their hands, and confront them.

Oct 21 (Reuters)—Burkina Faso’s transitional legislature, the 71-member Assemblée législative du peuple (People’s Legislative Assembly), unanimously adopted a revised penal code on Tuesday that restores the death penalty, nearly a decade after the West African country abolished capital punishment, the Justice Ministry said in a statement. The revised code reintroduces the death penalty for crimes including terrorism (for authors and accomplices), espionage, treason, parricide, and the importation of expired or banned products that result in death, according to state-run media and the ministry. The new text is a substantial revision of the 2018 penal code and also toughens penalties for other offenses, such as certain large-scale economic crimes.

Florida puts 77-year-old man to death for a deputy's killing in its 18th execution this year  Florida carried out its 18th execution of the year on Tuesday under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ’ aggressive use of the death penalty in his final term.  William Reaves, 77, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1986 shooting death of Indian River County Deputy Richard Raczkowski. 

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, October 19, rejected an appeal by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, leaving him facing a possible death sentence. The decision leaves in place a lower court ruling that allowed former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to withdraw a plea agreement under which Mohammed would have pleaded guilty in exchange for life imprisonment without parole. The Supreme Court provided no explanation for its decision. Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not participate.

Christa and I have been communicating regularly via a messaging system on her prison table for over a year. Her experience is proof that she and other guilty individuals on death row are not monsters As a former Jewish prison chaplain and co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty, I have communicated via phone and computer messaging for years with many individuals on American death rows before their ultimate execution. One of our long-time correspondents, Christa Pike , catapulted into international news late last month when she survived two torturous doses of lethal drugs in a botched execution attempt by the state of Tennessee.

WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - One-third of Americans think the government should try a second time to put a convicted criminal to death if a first execution attempt fails, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after a botched lethal injection in Tennessee. The four-day poll, completed on Monday, showed 39% of respondents thought the government should instead allow convicts to serve life in prison following a failed execution, while 26% were not sure which was a better approach.

Iranian authorities executed 50-year-old Ali Asghar Sanei in Shahroud Central Prison following his conviction on “drug-related offenses.” According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the execution took place at dawn on Wednesday, October 14, 2026. Sanei was from Semnan. Hengaw sources reported that he worked as a tiler in the construction industry before his arrest approximately three years ago for transporting nine kilograms of heroin.

There is massive outrage over the way two Bangladeshi migrant workers have been executed by Saudi Arabia. They were executed for "immoral acts" in a Mecca mosque, said Saudi media. But the opacity surrounding the execution process, including the lack of details of their crimes, and Dhaka being informed only after they were killed, have led to a backlash. There is outrage over Saudi Arabia executing two Bangladeshi nationals accused of committing immoral acts in a mosque in the holy city of Mecca. The executions have raised questions about their alleged crimes, the opacity of the process, the fairness of their trials, and whether Dhaka was informed beforehand and could have, in any way, helped save the couple.

A criminal court in Algeria on October 18, 2026, sentenced two men to death for the illegal importation and sale of 144 kg of synthetic drugs—approximately 235,000 ecstasy tablets.  This is the second death sentence issued in the country in two weeks under the anti-drug trafficking law adopted in July 2025, The Rio Times reports. According to Algerian state radio and the newspaper Echorouk, the court of first instance in Dar El Beida heard the case of eight members of the network. Prosecutors sought the death penalty for all defendants. The other accused were sentenced to terms of 10 years in prison or acquitted.

Saudi Arabia carried out a series of executions in mid-October, including that of a woman convicted of killing her mother and attempting to kill her sister, alongside five men in the Eastern Province. Official statements described the five as terrorists; human rights groups described them as political prisoners sentenced under discretionary (ta’zir) penalties, one of whom was a child at the time of the alleged acts. The cases illustrate the kingdom’s continued use of the death penalty under Sharia, its stated commitment to public order and justice, and criticism from human rights organizations over the scope of capital punishment.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear appeals from three men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks who are currently awaiting trial at the infamous Guantánamo Bay prison.   The justices turned away petitions from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two alleged accomplices, Mustafa al-Hawsawi and Walid bin ‘Attash, without explanation.  Justice Brett Kavanaugh recused himself from the Mohammed and al-Hawsawi petition.  The three prisoners were seeking to reinstate plea deals in which they agreed to plead guilty and give detailed confessions about their roles in the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history. In exchange, prosecutors would not have sought the death penalty.

Two death sentences in Meerut have renewed attention on women facing capital punishment. Historical records and recent data reveal how rare executions remain On October 14, the Meerut District and Sessions Court sentenced Muskan Rastogi and her partner Sahil Shukla to death for murdering her husband, Saurabh Rajput, and concealing his dismembered body in a blue plastic drum filled with cement. On October 16, another Meerut court sentenced Ravita Kashyap and her partner Amardeep to death for murdering her husband, Amit Kashyap, and staging his death to resemble a snakebite .

With his execution date looming, convicted killer William Reaves will soon be moved from Raiford's Union Correctional Institution to a death watch cell in nearby Florida State Prison, a maximum-security complex also known as "The Rock." Reaves, 77, a former Gifford resident in Indian River County who’s been on death row for 38 years, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Oct. 20 at 6 p.m. His execution will fulfill a sentence of death imposed for the 1986 fatal shooting of Indian River County Sheriff’s Cpl. Richard “Raz” Raczkoski outside a Zippy Mart store on State Road 60 west of Vero Beach.

DUBAI — Saudi Arabia executed five people Saturday on terrorism charges, the ministry of interior said, bringing the total number of death sentences carried out this year to 188, according to an AFP tally based on official statements. The five Saudi nationals were convicted of “joining a foreign terrorist organization," opening fire on security forces and “providing support” for “terrorist operations inside the kingdom." Their executions were carried out in the Eastern Province, home to most of Saudi Arabia’s Shia Muslim minority, which has long complained of marginalization in the Sunni-majority country.

Iranian authorities executed Nasser Parvaneh, Ahmad Parviz, and a third prisoner named Farid, whose surname remains unknown, at Qezelhesar Prison in Karaj and Shirvan Central Prison. All three had been sentenced to death for “murder” in separate cases. According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Ahmad Parviz, a former lawyer, was executed at Qezelhesar Prison on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, after Iran’s Supreme Court upheld his death sentence.

On 10 October 2026, the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (Madpet) asks Malaysia to speed up the abolition of the death penalty. Malaysia has made progress towards abolition. The last execution was in 2017, and there has been a moratorium on executions since 2018. The mandatory death penalty was abolished in July 2023. This means Malaysia is on the verge of becoming “abolitionist in practice” (or de facto abolitionist). Such countries keep the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for at least 10 years. They also have an established policy or practice against executing people.

Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India, October 16 (ANI): Meerut Court on Friday handed down the death penalty to a woman and her paramour for the murder of her husband, a crime they systematically attempted to pass off as a tragic accident involving a venomous snake. The court sentenced Ravita Kashyap and her accomplice, Amardeep, to death for the murder of Ravita’s husband, Amit Kashyap. The sentencing comes shortly after the court convicted the duo of murder and criminal conspiracy on October 7.

The magistrate handling the proceedings against Pablo Ibar in Florida (United States) has completely dismissed the motion filed by his defense, which requested a public hearing for the witness who exculpates the Spanish inmate, of Guipuzcoan origin, from the three murders for which he is serving a life sentence.  The ruling is not yet final and will be appealed to the 4th District Court of Appeals.

President Donald Trump reversed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth's decision to livestream the state execution of the Fort Hood terrorist after pushback against the shocking decision.  'Nidal Malik Hasan, a former U.S. Army Major turned traitor, is a very bad and evil man who killed 13 people, including a pregnant soldier who died, along with her unborn son, and injured, very seriously, 32 more innocent people,' Trump said of the 2009 tragedy.  Hasan's execution by firing squad is scheduled for December 3.  Last week, Hegseth said that the execution will be made 'public,' and the Department of War later announced it would be live streamed.

Otto Lenke, a Sebastian resident and former Indian River County firefighter/paramedic, as well as a former Melbourne police officer, was convicted in May 2026 of first-degree murder with a firearm and first-degree arson for the February 2021 killing of Richard Benson, owner of Fast Frank’s Cycle Concepts in Fort Pierce. SEBASTIAN—A Nineteen Judicial Circuit judge on Tuesday sentenced former Indian River County firefighter and Melbourne police officer Otto Lenke of Sebastian to death for the 2021 killing of a Fort Pierce motorcycle shop owner.

(The Hill) — A new survey found the majority of Americans opposed publicly broadcast executions ahead of the Pentagon’s planned livestreamed execution of convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan. In the YouGov poll , 71 percent of respondents opposed “having executions broadcast live to the public,” while 18 favored it and 13 percent were not sure. Along partisan lines, 52 percent of Republicans opposed livestreamed executions, and 31 favorited it, while 87 percent of Democrats opposed it compared to only 8 percent in favor.

Relatives of a 17-year-old Thai girl whose body was found in a suitcase in Pattaya said on Monday (October 12) they want the death penalty for the Australian man accused of killing her, as they say he refused to apologize to them during a hearing at Pattaya Provincial Court. "I'm really angry. Being there in the courtroom, I see it as a life for a life, after the things he did to my child," said Thongchai Donhomla, the 46-year-old father of the victim. Simon Peter Carman faces charges of murder, concealment of a body, moving or destroying a body, and taking a minor for sexual purposes. 

New provisions prescribing the death penalty for crimes involving forest arson and child kidnapping have taken effect in Algeria under amendments to the penal code, the Algerian Press Service reported Wednesday. The amendments, approved by both houses of parliament last week, were published in the Official Gazette, it said. Under the law, capital punishment applies to anyone who deliberately sets fire to forests, wooded areas, cultivated or uncultivated fields, or trees and timber within forests.

Varisheh Moradi, an imprisoned Kurdish political and women’s rights activist, has been sentenced to death for the second time by Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court. Her defense attorneys state that the verdict was issued despite the court failing to conduct the additional investigations mandated by the Supreme Court, opting instead to hand down the death penalty once again. According to a report by Emtedad, Amir Sajjadi, one of Moradi’s attorneys, announced on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, that the new ruling was officially served to one of her lawyers. According to him, Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced Moradi to death on charges of “membership in a rebel group” (baghi). This ruling is subject to appeal to the Supreme Court within 20 days.

Saudi Arabia has carried out the death penalty on two Bangladeshi nationals in Mecca. The country's Interior Ministry announced this in a statement on Wednesday. According to the report, they were sentenced over allegations of involvement in immoral acts inside a mosque in Mecca. The information was reported by Ajel News, citing the Saudi Interior Ministry's statement. The two Bangladeshis executed were a man and a woman, Nazrul Islam Abdul Basir and Sithi Akhter. The “immoral acts” referred to illicit heterosexual intercourse, not homosexual activity.

Saudi Arabia's supreme court has overturned the death penalty awarded to a Sri Lankan migrant worker for a Facebook comment insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Anojan Sivarasa, a 24-year-old migrant worker from Kalmunai in Sri Lanka's eastern province, was sentenced to death in September for blasphemy after his online comment was brought to the attention of his Saudi employer. The case triggered a flurry of diplomatic efforts from the Sri Lankan government, which sent a four-member legal team to Riyadh to file a clemency appeal on Anojan's behalf.

STARKE, Fla. — A Florida prisoner who said he killed his cellmate specifically to get on death row was executed Tuesday, nearly 18 years after the attack. James Robertson, 63, declined to offer any last words before receiving a three-drug injection and was pronounced dead about 10 minutes later. It was a stark contrast to the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee two weeks ago, where she was rushed to the hospital after surviving two lethal doses of pentobarbital.

Payton Gendron, who is already serving life without parole for killing 10 Black people in a racist mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket in 2022, is asking a federal judge to throw out the case that could send him to death row. Defense attorneys filed the motion Monday — a day before jury selection was scheduled to begin — seeking to dismiss Gendron’s federal indictment. They argued that Black residents are underrepresented in the jury pool for New York’s Western District, according to WIVB and WKBW.

Kathmandu. A Chinese court on Tuesday sentenced three members of a criminal gang that operated a scam network in Myanmar's Kokang region to death. Dozens of other individuals have also been sentenced to various prison terms in the same case. In recent years, online scam businesses worth billions of dollars have flourished in some areas of Southeast Asia, including Myanmar. To control this, China has been increasing security cooperation with other countries in the region. Not all individuals involved in online scams voluntarily engage in criminal activity. Some foreign nationals, especially Chinese citizens, are trafficked to such centers by luring them with job offers. They are held captive in prison-like compounds and forced into scam activities.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 13 October 2026: Danial Jahanian, a man wrongfully convicted of murder, was executed in Bandar Abbas Central Prison. While state media portrayed the incident as an intentional ramming attack, official court records and other evidence obtained by IHRNGO show that plainclothes officers shot Danial through both legs, rendering him unconscious prior to collision, and that the officer's fatal injuries were caused by a secondary vehicle.

Iranian authorities have executed Ahmad Bazvand, a 35-year-old Lor prisoner, in Khorramabad Central Prison despite evidence raising doubts about his responsibility for the killing for which he was sentenced to death. According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Bazvand was executed at dawn on Wednesday, October 7, 2026. A resident of Bazvand village in Pol-e Dokhtar County, he was married and the father of a six-year-old daughter.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Emergency help for Christa Pike was delayed by confusion among first responders and Tennessee prison officials following her failed execution last month, according to 911 dispatch recordings. The recordings, obtained Monday by The Associated Press through a public records request, show that precious minutes elapsed as officials and responders tried to figure out whether a request for emergency help in the execution chamber was legitimate. The initial 911 call came in at 8:40 p.m. on Sept. 30, just over an hour after the attempted lethal injection got underway. But the caller was unable to provide a code that would help verify the legitimacy of the request.

As Christa Pike returns to death row after surviving Tennessee’s attempt to execute her, several questions remain about her case and what comes next.  Pike, 50, was discharged from hospital and moved back to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her attorneys said on Saturday.  She was hospitalized after surviving 2 doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital as Tennessee attempted to execute her on September 30. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her classmate at a Job Corps training program in Knoxville, Tennessee. Pike was 18 at the time. 

Florida is scheduled to execute James Robertson at noon on Tuesday, October 13, at Florida State Prison. His execution remains scheduled despite the withdrawal of William Lee Thompson’s death warrant, which had called for a 2nd execution that evening. If completed, this will be Florida’s 17th execution of 2026. Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) and partners will be holding a series of vigils and demonstrations across the state. 

A coalition of former judges and prosecutors is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Texas death penalty case that raises fundamental questions about the constitutional right to effective legal representation, judicial responsibility, and whether a conviction can stand when the accused was deprived of meaningful assistance from counsel during critical portions of trial.  In an amicus brief filed Oct. 2, the coalition argues that allowing such a conviction to stand threatens the integrity of the adversarial process and could weaken constitutional protections for defendants facing the most severe punishment available under the law.

Filings obtained by The Dallas Morning News cite Melissa Lucio’s recent case proceedings as a consequence of moving forward without an evidentiary hearing.  Nearly a year after Robert Roberson’s last stay of execution, his attorneys are using another death row inmate’s case as grounds to again press a Texas judge for an evidentiary hearing. In court documents obtained by The Dallas Morning News, Roberson’s lead attorney Gretchen Sween asked Smith County District Judge Austin Reeves Jackson to schedule a date “as soon as possible.” Sween cited the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decision late last month in the case of Melissa Lucio, arguing it makes the need for live testimony and further fact-finding especially urgent. 

What happened in Tennessee's execution chamber is one of the most common failures in medicine Christa Pike is awake. A week after Tennessee strapped her to a gurney and gave her two doses of pentobarbital , she is off the ventilator and speaking from a hospital bed, still shackled to it. Her lawyers call her recovery " medically unprecedented. " Legal scholars say she is the first person in American history to survive a lethal injection after the drug was actually given. I understand the impulse to make such claims. I consulted for Pike's legal team, but I have also spent three decades in operating rooms and intensive care units (ICUs), and I want to resist the word "unprecedented" and the word "miracle" that hovers just behind it.

The US is one of the few Western nations that still permits the death penalty, carried out regularly in 27 states. And in a country where regional political culture strongly favours retributive justice, it is no wonder capital punishment remains an enduring part of the American legal system. But following Christa Pike's botched lethal injection last week, fresh questions are being raised over whether executing convicted murderers and rapists outweighs the risks of an innocent person being put to death, or of an execution going so badly that a prisoner is left to die in agony, or even survives the attempt.

She's now back in custody at the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center Christa Pike is out of the hospital and receiving medical care in prison following a failed execution attempt. Her legal team, Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen from Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee, and Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason from the TN Office of the Post Conviction Defender, issued this statement on Oct. 10: "Christa Pike was discharged from a local hospital and is now at Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center where she has been housed for more than 30 years. She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances. She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison, and we will continue to track her recovery."

Any effort to challenge the Trump administration’s plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan might rest solely with the man sentenced to death for killing 13 people at the Texas military base in 2009, experts say. Broadcasting the event worldwide isn’t mentioned in the Army rules governing how rare military executions are carried out. But that doesn’t mean there is a viable legal path to oppose it by anyone besides Hasan. And he hasn’t signaled whether he will even try to stop anything related to his Dec. 3 death sentence.

Hengaw – Friday, October 9, 2026 | Iranian courts have sentenced at least 106 people arrested during the January 2026 protests to death, 35 of whom have already been executed. Another 63 remain at serious and imminent risk of execution, while the death sentences of eight others have been overturned, according to findings documented and verified by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights. Hengaw is releasing these findings in a special report marking World Day Against the Death Penalty on October 10. Drawing on evidence collected and verified by its Statistics and Documentation Center through October 9, 2026, the report details the death sentences imposed on protest detainees, the executions carried out, and the judicial proceedings and current status of their cases.

Death row leaves convicts' lives in limbo, agonizing over an existence neither ended nor lived Every weekday before 1997, death row inmates in Korea braced themselves between 6 and 9 a.m.—the hours when executions could happen. If 9 a.m. passed uneventfully, they felt relief. Then they went to sleep wondering if the next morning would be their last. No one has been executed since Dec. 30, 1997, but 56 people remain on death row—52 in Ministry of Justice correctional facilities and four in military prisons. Kim Dae-keun, a research fellow at the Korean Institute of Criminology and Justice, interviewed 42 of them.

Najmeh Amini, a 23-year-old woman detained in Mashhad Central Prison, was sentenced to death on the charge of blasphemy (insulting the prophet) over her social media post. The trial court rejected her statutory defenses of a slip of the tongue and intoxication-induced lack of intent, though the capital sentence remains subject to appellate review and has not yet been upheld by the Supreme Court.  Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of Iran Human Rights, stated: “Sentencing a 23-year-old woman to death for what she expressed on social media is an extremely alarming development. Although blasphemy carries the death penalty under Iranian law and two men were executed on such charges in 2023, this case risks expanding the use of the death penalty against peaceful online expression. The fact that the sentence has been imposed on a young woman adds another serious dimension. Without a strong international response now, we risk seeing a broader use and implementation of death sentences ...

Under the amended Crimes and Penalties Law, the minimum prison term has risen from seven to 15 years, and the maximum from 15 to 20 years, a legal expert said  Those convicted of murder will face imprisonment of 15 to 20 years in cases where the victim’s heirs waive their right to qisas (retribution), under amendments to the UAE’s Crimes and Penalties Law announced on Thursday, October 8.

The January 2026 nationwide protests resulted in killings, arrests, and severe judicial sentences for a segment of Iran’s athletic community. Several athletes from football, wrestling, martial arts, and mountaineering who joined the demonstrations were killed by Islamic Republic security forces, while a large number were detained. Now, nearly nine months after the protests, several detained athletes continue to face the threat of execution.

At least five prisoners, including a woman and two Lor men, have been executed in recent weeks at prisons in Shiraz, Dezful, Karaj and Sari. All five had been sentenced to death on murder charges. According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Mehdi Alizadeh, a resident of Shiraz, was executed at Adelabad Prison in the city at dawn on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, after being convicted of murder. On the same day, Ahmad Nikdel, a 44-year-old Lor man, father of three and laborer, was executed at Dezful Prison. He had been sentenced to death under Iran’s qisas (retributive justice) laws in connection with a killing that occurred during a workplace dispute.