Death Penalty News

Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York—name a Northeastern state, and you will be naming a place where there is no death penalty. New Hampshire was the latest to join the list in 2019.  But there is one glaring omission.  Pennsylvania. In the Keystone State, capital punishment is legal, even though no one has been executed there since 1999. The state exists in a kind of death penalty limbo, not abolishing it but unable or unwilling to carry out death sentences.  Recent polls suggest that the residents of Pennsylvania are ready to break the logjam. 58% now favor a life sentence rather than the death penalty for people convicted of murder. 

Amid public outcry about death row inmates applying for clemency, the government board that handles the process is being overhauled by a new state law with provisions taking effect July 1. Under the Kansas Constitution and state law, the governor has executive clemency power, which allows Gov. Laura Kelly to commute a sentence. Clemency applications are first submitted to the Prisoner Review Board, which reviews the case in accordance with state laws before ultimately submitting a recommendation to the governor, who makes the final decision.

LAS VEGAS — A man who once stood as the youngest person on Nevada’s death row has officially transitioned from a life behind bars to a life under supervision, following his release from High Desert State Prison last month. Edward Michael Domingues, 49, was released on parole on Feb. 13, 2026. His freedom marks the end of 32 consecutive years of incarceration for the 1993 murders of Arjin Chanel Pechpho and her 4-year-old son, Jonathan Smith. Since his release, the case has ignited a renewed debate over Nevada’s victim notification systems. Tawin Eshelman, the mother and grandmother of the victims, confirmed that the family was never formally notified of the parole hearing that led to Domingues' freedom.

Victims’ families and the sole survivor urged the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board to reject clemency for the man sentenced to die for a 2006 double murder. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 against recommending clemency on Wednesday for death row inmate Kendrick Simpson.  Simpson, 45, was sentenced to die by lethal injection for fatally shooting Glen Palmer, 20, and Anthony Jones, 19, after an argument at an Oklahoma City nightclub.  The Jones and Palmer families support Simpson’s execution. They urged the board to deny clemency. 

The 2026 legislative session begins in less than a month, and one state senator is looking to “get some traction” on a two-year death penalty moratorium bill, which has carried over from 2025. Sen. Nikki Nice, D-Oklahoma City, spoke in support of Senate Bill 601 during a press conference, urging the Pardon and Parole Board to “extend mercy” when it considers recommending or denying Kendrick Simpson clemency on Jan. 14 . Advocates said crucial evidence about Simpson’s history and mental health was not fully presented during his 2007 jury trial.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Lawmakers and the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty are calling for a man on death row to be granted clemency. Kendrick Simpson was convicted in 2006 for the double murder in the drive-by shooting of Glen Palmer and Antony Jones. Prosecutors said Simpson fired approximately 20 shots at his victims, and Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond recently said that the death row inmate "hunted his victims" and "never demonstrated genuine remorse."

Kendrick Antonio Simpson, 45, is the first man scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma in 2026. Simpson was convicted more than a decade ago for killing Glen Palmer, 20, and Anthony Jones, 19, after a confrontation at an Oklahoma City nightclub. Another man was wounded. Simpson is said to have fired as many as 25 shots from a semi-automatic rifle at the victims’ car. He received two death sentences in 2007. Two other men in the car with Simpson made plea deals for 20-year prison terms. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider an appeal that argued Simpson’s lawyer provided ineffective assistance during the punishment phase of his trial.

The execution of a Georgia man scheduled for Wednesday has been suspended as the State Board of Pardons and Paroles considers a clemency application.  Stacey Humphreys, 52, would have been the state's first execution in 2025. As of December 16, 2025, Georgia has carried out zero executions in 2025. The state last executed an inmate in January 2020, followed by a pause due to COVID-19. Executions resumed in 2024, but none have occurred this year until now. Humphreys had been sentenced to death for the 2003 killings of 33-year-old Cyndi Williams and 21-year-old Lori Brown, who were fatally shot at the real estate office where they worked.

Republican Kevin Stitt commuted Tremane Wood’s death sentence to life in prison for 2002 murder of Ronnie Wipf Tremane Wood, the 46-year-old death row inmate who faced execution today in Oklahoma, has had his life spared just minutes before he was set to receive a lethal injection. Kevin Stitt, the state’s Republican governor, accepted the Oklahoma pardon and parole board’s recommendation that Wood’s sentence be commuted to life in prison without parole. It is just the second time during Stitt’s nearly seven years as governor that he has granted clemency.

Tremane Wood was convicted of a murder his brother had confessed to. Now a Republican governor will decide whether he dies on Thursday It may be about to execute him, but Oklahoma’s department of corrections hasn’t even spelled Tremane Wood’s name right: it lists him on its official website as “Termane” Wood. For 16 of his last 21 years in prison, following his conviction for the murder of 19-year-old Ronnie Wipf, he has been confined, often alone, to a series of windowless concrete cells in the state penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma, in an underground block that prisoners have compared to a tomb.

A voting board in Oklahoma decided Wednesday to recommend clemency for Tremane Wood, a death row inmate who is scheduled to receive a lethal injection next week at the state penitentiary in McAlester.  Wood, 46, faces execution for his conviction in the 2001 murder of Ronnie Wipf, a migrant farmworker, at an Oklahoma City hotel on New Year's Eve, court records show. The recommendation was decided in a 3-2 vote by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, consisting of five members appointed by either the governor or the state's top judicial official, according to CBS News affiliate KWTV. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Sitt will consider the recommendation as he weighs whether to grant or deny Wood's clemency request, which would mean sparing him from execution and reducing his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

INDIANAPOLIS — Governor Mike Braun has denied clemency for Roy Lee Ward, allowing his execution to proceed as scheduled for October 10. "After carefully reviewing the unanimous recommendation from the State Parole Board, I have decided to allow the execution of Roy Lee Ward to proceed as planned for October 10," Braun said. The Indiana Parole Board unanimously recommended denying Ward's request for clemency after conducting public hearings on September 22. Ward had requested his death sentence be commuted to life in prison without parole.

Arizona prisoner set to be executed apologizes, says he won’t seek clemency PHOENIX -- An Arizona prisoner scheduled to be executed next month for killing four members of a family in their Phoenix home over 30 years ago has issued a statement apologizing for the pain he’s caused. In a handwritten note released Thursday, Richard Djerf reiterated he wasn’t going to seek relief from the state’s clemency board. “If I can’t find reason to spare my life, what reason would anyone else have?” he wrote. “I hope my death brings some measure of peace.” The Arizona Attorney General’s Office, which sought the warrant for Djerf’s execution, declined to comment on the statement.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lyle Menendez was denied parole Friday, a day after his younger brother Erik received the same recommendation by a California state board. Their separate hearings this week come nearly 30 years after the brothers were convicted of first-degree murder for the 1989 killings of their parents. They were sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1996. But after a Los Angeles judge reduced their sentences to 50 years to life in May, they immediately became eligible for parole under California law because they were under age 26 when they committed their crimes.

In what is being described as the “last big hurdle” before his Sept. 5 execution, attorneys for death row inmate Ralph Menzies argued before the Utah Supreme Court that the state should pause proceedings and give the 67-year-old convicted killer with dementia another review to see if he is competent.   Menzies — sentenced to die by firing squad for the 1986 kidnapping and murder of 26-year-old Maurine Hunsaker — is running out of appeals. His death warrant has been signed, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole recently denied him clemency and his execution is now almost two weeks away. 

The board said he can next be eligible for parole in three years. Erik Menendez was denied parole during his first-ever parole hearing on Thursday, 36 years and one day after he and his brother killed their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. Erik Menendez, 54, attended the nearly 10-hour hearing via video from the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. The board said he can next be eligible for parole in three years.

The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole has denied Ralph Menzies’ request for clemency, one of the death row inmate’s final appeals ahead of his execution scheduled for Sept. 5.  The announcement came Tuesday afternoon, four days after the commutation hearing for the 67-year-old inmate, where board members heard arguments for and against granting Menzies mercy.  Menzies is scheduled to die by firing squad after spending nearly four decades in prison for the 1986 murder of Maurine Hunsaker, a 26-year-old gas station clerk whom Menzies kidnapped. Hunsaker was brought up Big Cottonwood Canyon, where Menzies tied her to a tree, strangled her, then slashed her throat.

Jennifer Herron is the daughter of Maurine Hunsaker, who was murdered by Utah death row inmate Ralph Menzies. I am the oldest daughter born to Maurine Hunsaker, who was murdered by Ralph Menzies in 1986. She was 17 years old at the time of my birth. She was on welfare and barely getting by having one child before me, and for that and other reasons I was placed for adoption. Unlike my older brother, I don’t recall meeting my birth mother, but it is possible that I did. My grandmother was a friend of the family that adopted me, which is how the adoption was arranged.

Last year with hours left to live, Robert Roberson's life was spared following a furious effort by a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers − a development rarely seen in the hardliner state A Texas judge has rescheduled the execution of a death row inmate who won a rare stay of execution last year as prison officials were poised to administer his lethal injection. Judge Austin Reeve Jackson on Wednesday set Robert Roberson's execution for Oct. 16, almost exactly a year after the Texas Supreme Court granted him a stay on his last execution day, Oct. 17, 2024.

WEST JORDAN, Utah — A judge has signed a death warrant for condemned killer Ralph Leroy Menzies, setting his execution for Sept. 5. "Mr. Menzies' appeal of the court order finding him competent is not a basis… to stay execution," 3rd District Court Judge Matthew Bates said. Menzies is facing the death penalty for the 1988 kidnapping and murder of Maurine Hunsaker. She was taken from her job at a convenience store and tied up in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Her throat was slit.