Death Penalty News

February 21, 2006, a California court’s deci­sion effec­tive­ly halt­ed the planned exe­cu­tion of Michael Angelo Morales, mark­ing the start of California’s 20-year mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tion sched­ul­ing and throw­ing into the spot­light the ten­sion between physi­cian par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions and their pledge to show ​“ the utmost respect for life .” " The events sur­round­ing Morales’s impend­ing fate brought to the sur­face the long-run­ning schism between law and med­i­cine, rais­ing the ques­tion of whether any ben­e­fi­cial con­nec­tion between the pro­fes­sions ever exist­ed in the exe­cu­tion con­text. History shows it sel­dom did. Decades of botched exe­cu­tions prove it. " — Professor Deborah Denno, The Lethal Injection Quandary: How Medicine Has Dismantled the Death Penalty

Is the use of pentobarbital a humane choice for an execution? On May 22, Oscar Smith, who was convicted of killing his wife and her two teenage sons, was executed in Tennessee by lethal injection. The state used the chemical pentobarbital only instead of the three-drug cocktail previously employed in its lethal injection protocol. Lethal injection has been used in 98% of U.S. executions since 1982. Smith’s execution was delayed multiple times because the drugs that were to be used for lethal injection three years ago had not been properly tested for bacterial toxins. His execution earlier this year was Tennessee’s first use of the death penalty since 2020 when Nicholas Sutton was executed by electrocution. Smith had been on death row for 35 years. He was convicted in the 1979 deaths of his grandmother, a high school friend and another man, The Tennessean newspaper reported.

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - Mississippi’s longest-serving death row inmate is seeking clemency from Gov. Tate Reeves. On Monday, attorneys for Richard Gerald Jordan filed the petition, asking the governor to commute his sentence to life in prison without parole. Jordan’s attorneys are also requesting a 15-minute in-person or virtual interview with the state’s top elected leader. “It is the long-standing practice of the Office of the Governor in Mississippi to allow a 15 to 20-minute meeting with a death-sentenced inmate’s representatives,” Frank Rosenblatt, a representative for Jordan wrote.

According to records request­ed by The Tennessean, between 2017 and 2025 the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC spent near­ly $600,000 of tax­pay­er funds obtain­ing drugs for lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions. Specific infor­ma­tion about the drugs’ sources and ori­gins remains unknown because of the state’s secre­cy pro­vi­sions. During this time peri­od sev­en exe­cu­tions were car­ried out: five by elec­tro­cu­tion, two by lethal injection. The TDOC ini­tial­ly refused to respond to The Tennessean’s February 2025 records request for drug invoic­es, cit­ing state secre­cy law that shields infor­ma­tion about the drugs, the drug sup­pli­er and the indi­vid­u­als involved in exe­cu­tions. 

It’s December 18th, 2024. In the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, a guard approaches one of the 200 cells in Death Row and finds a prisoner inside, sitting on the edge of his bed. It’s 3 p.m. Kevin Ray Underwood has 24 hours left to live. Not every state in the US allows – or uses – the death penalty. The ones that do all have different execution protocols. But generally speaking, the timeline features similar events with slight differences in the details.  These protocols can take months of preparation—all so that the day of execution is well… perfectly executed. 

Oklahoma executes Kevin Underwood by lethal injection for brutal 2006 murder Nearly two decades after Kevin Ray Underwood murdered his 10-year-old neighbor, he died by lethal injection Thursday morning at 10:14 a.m., according to media witnesses. By coincidence, it was his 45th birthday. Underwood was sentenced to death in 2008 for killing Jamie Bolin in Purcell two years earlier. He confessed to police that he lured Bolin into his house, beat her over the head, attempted to decapitate her and stashed her body in a plastic tub with hopes of later eating it.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi attorney general on Tuesday requested an execution date for the state’s longest-serving death row inmate. Richard Gerald Jordan, now 78, was sentenced to death in 1976 for the kidnapping and killing of Edwina Marter earlier that year in Harrison County. The Mississippi Supreme Court rejected Jordan’s latest appeal Tuesday, and Attorney General Lynn Fitch filed papers hours later asking the court to set a date for the lethal injection.

Emmanuel Littlejohn executed in Oklahoma despite clemency recommendation from state board Things were looking up for Emmanuel Littlejohn in August as the state's parole board recommended him for clemency. But Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt was not swayed and allowed the execution to proceed. Emmanuel Littlejohn was executed by the state of Oklahoma Thursday morning in the shooting death of a beloved convenience store owner, despite a recommendation from a clemency board that his life should be spared.

Honie is currently scheduled to be executed in the early morning hours on Thursday. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox will not stop Taberon Honie’s execution this week, telling the death row inmate’s legal team in a letter released Tuesday that he doesn’t believe temporarily halting his lethal injection is warranted.

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A 2 News Investigation looks into what the cost for taxpayers for Taberon Dave Honie’s execution compared to life in prison without the possibility of parole. And what about the actual executioners who will put the condemned killer to death? Like other states that have the death penalty, 2 News Investigates found Utah is secretive when it comes to the source of the drugs, the training of the executioners and how much they get paid.

Taberon Dave Honie will be put to death by pentobarbital instead of the untested lethal drug combination Utah abandoned plans to put a man to death with an untested lethal drug combination in his upcoming execution. A previously used drug will be used for Taberon Dave Honie's execution instead.

On Aug. 8, Utah could become the first state in the country to use ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, in an execution by lethal injection. But Taberon Honie, the state’s first death row inmate to face an execution warrant in more than a decade, is suing officials with the Utah Department of Corrections, claiming the novel approach could lead to unnecessary pain and suffering, while triggering hallucinations, paranoia and “mental anguish.”

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana is one of 27 states where state-backed executions are still legal, but no one has been put to death in a Hoosier prison in 15 years. Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita look to change that. On Wednesday, Rokita’s office filed a motion with the Indiana Supreme Court seeking to set a date for the execution of Joseph Corcoran — a Fort Wayne man found guilty of murdering four people in 1997.

Taberon Dave Honie is set to be executed using a new drug in a lethal injection cocktail, which will now feature ketamine alongside the usual fentanyl and potassium chloride A murderer has had his execution date set despite growing concerns over the lethal injection drug combination to be used.

Since its advent more than 40 years ago, lethal injection has become by far the most common method of enacting capital punishment in the United States, accounting for the vast majority of executions since the penalty was reinstated in 1976. The US government and 27 states reserve the death penalty for those deemed the worst of the worst. Convicted of particularly heinous crimes, inmates are typically put to death after their appeals run out, often a yearslong process that regularly reaches the US Supreme Court – which has found lethal injection constitutional and not a violation of Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

I witnessed the death of Jemaine Cannon. I was horrified. On the morning of the execution, I woke up in a crappy motel room in McAlester, Okla., and although the day before I’d thought frequently about what I would be doing if I knew this would be my final day, I now found myself wordless, affectless, calm. I did some pushups and crunches. I took a shower. And then I checked out and found some coffee before heading to the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Except for that last part, the morning was unremarkable. I had wanted to attend an execution for some time, because I believe that the growing normalization of a punishment that is inherently cruel and unusual—and wildly disproportionate in its application against people of color—is directly related to a growing reluctance to look at the evidence of barbarities inflicted on our society, and by it. And I believe the first step to changing any horror is to bear full witness to it.

The image of gunmen in a row firing in unison at a condemned prisoner may conjure up a bygone, less enlightened era. But the idea of using firing squads is making a comeback. Idaho lawmakers passed a bill this week seeking to add the state to the list of those authorizing firing squads, which currently includes Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Fresh interest comes as states scramble for alternatives to lethal injections after pharmaceutical companies barred the use of their drugs. Some, including a few Supreme Court justices, view firing squads as less cruel than lethal injections, despite the violence involved in riddling bodies with bullets. Others say it’s not so cut-and-dry, or that there are other factors to consider.

Gov. Bill Lee ordered the independent review. He released it Wednesday and outlined a series of next steps, including revising the lethal injection protocol. The Tennessee Department of Correction failed to follow its own lethal injection protocol since it was introduced in 2018, according to the findings of an independent probe into the state's execution procedures released Wednesday. The probe, led by former U.S Attorney Edward Stanton, found that the three drugs used in Tennessee's lethal injection protocol were not properly tested for endotoxins, a type of contaminant. This oversight was caused in part by a lack of communication: TDOC never gave its lethal injection protocol to the Texas pharmacy contracted to oversee the procurement and testing of the deadly drugs, the probe found.

Alabama’s corrections department has bungled the procedure on three recent occasions, with IV teams failing on hours at end, adding immense distress to a difficult situation On three occasions in the past four months, Alabama’s department of corrections has bungled its lethal injections procedure. At 7.57pm on 17 November, prison guards entered the “death cell” at Holman correctional facility in Atmore, south Alabama, where Kenneth Smith was awaiting execution by lethal injection for the 1988 murder-for-hire of a preacher’s wife.

JACKSON — A federal judge has ruled that he will not block Mississippi from carrying out with next week’s scheduled execution of an inmate who is suing the state over its use of three drugs for lethal injections. Thomas Edwin Loden Jr., 58, faces a Dec. 14 execution date, which was recently set by the Mississippi Supreme Court. U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate handed down a ruling late Wednesday, saying Loden’s execution can happen even while the lawsuit is pending. The Associated Press left phone messages for two of Loden’s attorneys Thursday, asking whether Wingate’s ruling would be appealed. Those calls were not immediately returned. Loden has been on death row since 2001, when he pleaded guilty to capital murder, rape and four counts of sexual battery against a 16-year-old girl. Attorneys for the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center sued the Mississippi prison system on behalf of two death row inmates in 2015, saying the state’s lethal injection protocol is inhumane. Lo...