Death Penalty News

Earlier, while convicting Chenthamara, the court had asked whether he wished to say anything before sentencing. He initially replied that he had "nothing to say." PALAKKAD: In a significant judgment, the Additional District and Sessions Court-IV, Palakkad, on Monday sentenced Chenthamara (62) to death for the brutal double murder of his neighbours Sudhakaran and his 75-year-old mother Lakshmi at Boyan Unnathi in Pothundy, Nenmara in 2025. In addition to the death penalty, the court imposed a fine of Rs 20 lakh and ordered that this amount be paid as compensation to the victims' family.

On July 26, 2008, 56 people died, and more than 200 people were injured after 21 explosions rocked Ahmedabad within a span of 70 minutes. The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday upheld the death sentences of 38 convicts and life imprisonment awarded to 11 others in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts case, affirming the verdict of a special court that had convicted members of the terror outfit Indian Mujahideen (IM). A division bench of Justices A.Y. Kogje and Samir Dave dismissed all appeals filed by the convicts against the 2022 special court judgment, thereby confirming the sentences.

Supreme Court says capital punishment can be awarded only when life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed; commutes death sentence in Uttarakhand double murder case to 25 years without remission. The Supreme Court recently observed that capital punishment can be awarded only when the alternative of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. Court explained that while deciding whether a convict deserves the death penalty, judges must carefully balance aggravating and mitigating circumstances, taking into account not only the nature of the crime but also the background of the offender, prior antecedents, socio-economic circumstances, and the possibility of reformation and rehabilitation.

Itanagar, Apr 27: A special POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) court in Arunachal Pradesh’s Yupia has sentenced a 44-year-old man to death for repeatedly raping his minor relative in 2019, terming the offence a “rarest of rare” case marked by a grave breach of trust. Special Judge (POCSO) Dr Hirendra Kashyap convicted Lakang Tallang under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including rape by a person in a position of trust and criminal intimidation, read with Section 6 of the POCSO Act.

On 13 April 2026, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court stayed a death sentence awarded to three convicts in a case from Dakshina Kannada. A trial court had convicted them and sentenced them to death in October 2024 for rape and murder under the penal code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 . A death sentence awarded by a trial court is not executable until it is confirmed by a High Court. On 6 February 2026, a Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court confirmed the trial court’s decision. The Supreme Court left the conviction of the appellants untouched and reopened the sentencing question on two grounds: the High Court loosely engaged with the mitigation question in a single paragraph, and a third form of punishment—viewed as an alternative between ordinary life imprisonment and death penalty—was unconsidered.

Case termed ‘rarest of rare’ In a landmark verdict, a court in Tamil Nadu on 6 April sentenced nine police personnel to death in the 2020 Sathankulam custodial deaths case, holding them guilty of the brutal killing of a father-son duo. First Additional District and Sessions Judge G Muthukumaran classified the case as the “rarest of rare”, observing that those entrusted with protecting citizens had committed a crime that “shook the collective conscience of society”. The court awarded capital punishment to all nine convicted personnel for the murder of P Jayaraj and his son J Bennix.

A special court in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda on Friday sentenced a former Junior Engineer (JE) of the Irrigation Department and his wife to death for the sexual exploitation of 33 minor boys — some as young as three — over a decade, officials said. The POCSO court termed the crimes as “rarest of rare” and held Ram Bhawan and his wife Durgawati guilty of systematically abusing children between 2010 and 2020 and producing child sexual abuse material. Convicting the duo under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the court sentenced them to death for offences including aggravated penetrative sexual assault, using a child for pornographic purposes, storage of pornographic material involving children, and abetment and criminal conspiracy, they said.

Data and recent Supreme Court judgments show how trial court death sentences frequently collapse under appellate scrutiny, raising questions about investigation, evidence and the use of capital punishment. Hanumangarh, Rajasthan: Eight years after a crime that later led to a death sentence, the Supreme Court has acquitted a young man from Chennai convicted of the rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl. A trial court in Chengalpattu had sentenced him to death in 2018, a verdict later upheld by the Madras High Court. Earlier this month, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court overturned both judgments, citing serious gaps in the prosecution’s case.

The death penalty would be applied in situations where the victim is under 12 years of age.  A bill that would allow the death penalty in certain cases of child rape, sodomy or sexual torture has passed its 1st hurdle as lawmakers have prioritized the bill for the 2026 session.  House Bill 41 by Rep. Matt Simpson, R-Daphne, would allow for the death penalty in cases where an individual has been convicted of the rape, sodomy or sexual torture of a child under 12 years of age.  “Some people need to die,” Simpson said during discussion of the bill. “That is exactly the point. This is the worst of the worst offenses. These people are taking advantage of children who cannot defend themselves. These are the absolute victims of society.” 

India’s Supreme Court is showing marked restraint in death penalty cases in 2025, overturning or commuting most of the sentences it reviews.  In the first seven months of the year, it heard 14 death sentence appeals, fully acquitting seven and commuting four to life imprisonment — confirming none. This continues a pattern seen since June 2022, when the court last upheld a non-terror death sentence.  High courts are also pushing back; between 2016 and 2025, they rejected death sentences in 80% of cases referred for confirmation.

The Supreme Court yesterday rejected an appeal from death row prisoner Cheng Wu-sung (鄭武松) to suspend his execution. In September last year, the Constitutional Court issued Constitutional Judgement No. 8, which said that although the death penalty is constitutional, it should only be applied in “exceptional cases.” This led to Cheng filing for a retrial on the grounds that he could be rehabilitated. The constitutional judgement allows for the death penalty only for the “most serious” of premeditated crimes and if the case followed the strictest requirements of due process.

The direction came as the bench of Justice Gurvinder Singh Gill and Justice Jasjit Singh Bedi held that the case did not fall within the ‘rarest of rare’ category warranting capital punishment A father, who raped and murdered his six-year-old daughter, has escaped the gallows after the Punjab and Haryana High Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment for the “remainder of his natural life” without remissions. The direction came as the bench of Justice Gurvinder Singh Gill and Justice Jasjit Singh Bedi held that the case did not fall within the ‘rarest of rare’ category warranting capital punishment.

In 90% of of all death penalty sentences in 2024, trial courts imposed sentences in the absence of adequate information about the accused, finds a recent report Bengaluru: Following the uproar and the widespread protests after the August 2024 rape and murder of a medical professional in Kolkata’s RG Kar hospital, there were demands for death penalty for the accused. The state government passed the Aparajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2024 (awaiting presidential assent) which included mandatory death sentence for rape which results in death of the victim or if the victim is left in a vegetative state, despite such a mandatory sentence being unconstitutional.

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman has implemented important changes to the current and historic policies of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office regarding its prosecution of special circumstance murder cases. Effective immediately, the prior administration’s extreme and categorical policy forbidding prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in any case is rescinded. In its place, the new murder with special circumstances policy will consider pursuing the death penalty only after an extensive and comprehensive review and only in exceedingly rare cases. This new policy recognizes an evolving determination that the death penalty should be restricted to the most egregious sets of circumstances.

KOLKATA: A Pocso court in the city on Tuesday sentenced a 34-year-old man to death for raping a seven-month-old infant on Nov 30 last year, leaving her fighting for life. The court termed the case "rarest of rare". The court also awarded compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the survivor. The sentencing came a day after Rajib Ghosh (also known as Gobra) was found guilty of the crime. "This is a rarest of rare case. There cannot be any other punishment that the court can think of," judge Indrila Mukhopadhyay Mitra said, reading out the verdict.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan carried out its first execution in five years late on Thursday, upsetting both rights groups and the European Union which called on the government to maintain its de facto moratorium on the death penalty. Despite Taiwan's reputation as Asia's most liberal democracy, the death penalty remains broadly popular according to opinion polls, though in recent years it has only rarely been carried out and violent crime is relatively low.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai, Aravind Kumar and K V Viswanathan set aside the death penalty but sentenced the accused to 20 years in jail. The Supreme Court on Wednesday commuted the death penalty of a man, who had murdered his pregnant daughter for performing an inter-caste marriage against her family's will. A bench of Justices B R Gavai, Aravind Kumar and K V Viswanathan set aside the death penalty but upheld the conviction of Eknath Kisan Kumbharkar from Nashik district in Maharashtra and sentenced him to 20 years in jail instead.

34-year-old Umendra Kevat unsuccessfully tried to hang himself after the murders using the same rope with which he strangled his family.  'No signs or remorse', says court.  A court in Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur Tuesday sentenced a 34-year-old man to death for having murdered his wife and three children this January saying the act was “predetermined, grave, barbaric, (and) horrifying where innocent and helpless children were murdered by a man who was supposed to be their natural guardian”.

Gir Somnath (Gujarat), Jul 30 (PTI) A special POCSO court has sentenced to death a 32-year-old man for raping and murdering an eight-year-old girl in Gujarat's Gir Somnath district in 2022. In an order passed on Monday, special judge S I Bhorania at Kodinar town ordered that the accused, Somabhai Solanki, be "hanged by the neck till he is dead," and also directed him to pay Rs 25,000 as fine.

Parvez Tak, stepfather of Bollywood actor Laila Khan, has been awarded the death penalty for the murder of the actor, her mother and four siblings in 2011. The Mumbai sessions court on Friday sentenced Parvez Tak to death for the murder of his stepdaughter and Bollywood actor Laila Khan, her mother and four siblings in 2011.  Parvez Tak was held guilty by the court on May 9 for murder and destruction of evidence.