Death Penalty News

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.

Nearly 30 new laws went into effect today in Florida, including five aimed at protecting children from predators. One, even upping the sentencing for those convicted to capital punishment. Under a new law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis , criminals charged with trafficking children under 12 years old could face life in prison or even death. " SB 1804 , which establishes capital human trafficking , make no mistake, these sexual predators will stop at nothing to be able to harm kids," DeSantis said. Becky Dymond with Lighthouse Palm Beach County , who helps survivors of sex trafficking, supports the enhanced punishments.

Blaine Milam executed for 2008 killing of toddler in East Texas East Texas death row inmate Blaine Milam has been executed for the 2008 exorcism-style murder of 13-month-old Amora Bain Carson. He was convicted in the December 2008 exorcism-style killing of 13-month-old Amora Bain Carson in Rusk County.  Milam received the lethal injection at 6:19 p.m. and was pronounced dead at 6:40 p.m. this evening. His execution follows a decade of legal challenges as his defense team challenged the use of bite mark evidence and raised concerns about intellectual disability. 

The Supreme People's Court recently approved a ruling passed by the Guangdong High People's Court that sentenced a criminal syndicate organizer surnamed Zhou to the death penalty. Zhou was also deprived of political rights for life and had all his personal property confiscated as supplementary punishments, according to the ruling published by the Supreme People's Court recently. Zhou was convicted of multiple crimes: organizing and leading a gangland-style organization, sexual assault against a minor, picking quarrels and provoking trouble, theft, affray, forcible indecency, organizing minors to engage in activities that violated public security, extortion by blackmail, and intentional injury.

Nawal Filali, founder of the Aji Nt3awnou Association, told MWN that the petition demands maximum sentences, chemical castration, death penalty, and the removal of any mitigating circumstances for child sexual assaults. Rabat – The Moroccan association “Yallah Nt3awnou” has launched a national petition calling on the Minister of Justice, Abdellatif Ouahbi, and Parliament to impose harsher penalties for rape and sexual assault against children, including the death penalty for repeat offenders.

The State of Florida announced Friday it is seeking the death penalty for a registered sex offender accused of more child sex crimes in Putnam County. According to a May 16 post by the sheriff's office, Welaka resident Dimeco Henderson, 34, was already a registered sex offender when he was accused in April of sex crimes with two children in Putnam County. Putnam County detectives were notified on April 30 of Henderson's possible sex crimes against the two children. Detectives spoke with the children at their elementary school and were subsequently brought to the county's child protection team for interviews.

OKLAHOMA CITY — People convicted of sex offenses against children can be sentenced to death or life without parole on their first offense under a new law signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt.  Senate Bill 599, authored by Sen. Warren Hamilton, R-McCurtain, allows prosecutors to pursue the death penalty for the rape of a child under 14 for first-time offenders.  Under existing law, the offender must have been previously convicted of the sex crime to be eligible for the death penalty.  For lewd molestation against a child under the age of 12, an offender can receive the death penalty, a sentence of at least 10 years or life or life without parole. The law currently requires a sentence of at least 25 years of incarceration.

Widely supported in the Idaho Legislature, the bill is likely to face a constitutional challenge, lawmakers acknowledge. But they are hopeful law will prevail. Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed into law a bill to make people who sexually abuse young children in Idaho eligible for the death penalty.  House Bill 380 will allow the death penalty in a new criminal charge the bill creates: aggravated lewd conduct with children age 12 and younger. The bill also would add mandatory minimum prison sentences for cases of aggravated lewd conduct with minors that don’t meet the bill’s proposed criteria for death penalty eligibility. The new crime would only apply to abuse of children age 16 and below. 

Wood’s attorneys have requested that more than 100 additional pieces of evidence be tested for DNA, but the state has opposed the request for over a decade.  Young women had been disappearing from the streets of El Paso for months before the first bodies were discovered in the desert northeast of the city. On September 4, 1987, police found the remains of Karen Baker and Rosa Maria Casio in shallow graves. The search for other missing women stretched into March of 1988, interrupted by nearly 2 feet of snowfall in December 1987, a weather anomaly still remembered whenever snow falls in West Texas. Four more victims of the so-called “Desert Killer” were discovered: Ivy Williams, Desiree Wheatley, Angelica Frausto, and Dawn Smith. The victims’ ages ranged from 14 to 24.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana judges could order surgical castration for people convicted of sex crimes against young children under legislation approved Monday, and if Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signs it into law, the state apparently would be the first with such a punishment. The GOP-controlled Legislature passed the bill giving judges the option to sentence someone to surgical castration after the person has been convicted of certain aggravated sex crimes — including rape, incest and molestation — against a child under 13.

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling the practice unconstitutional, Sen. Mike Moon’s legislation would allow the death penalty in non-homicide cases A bill that would add child sex trafficking and statutory rape to the crimes eligible for the death penalty was debated Monday in a Missouri Senate committee — despite conflicting with U.S. Supreme Court precedent. The legislation is sponsored by state Sen. Mike Moon, an Ash Grove Republican who said Monday that one of the “principal purposes of government” is to “punish evil.”

Idaho has passed a new bill that seeks capital punishment for child sex predators. The bill, known as HB 515, would carry out the death penalty for any conviction relating to sexual acts with children younger than 12 years old. Simultaneously, another bill, HB465, which would allow prosecutors to charge producers of child pornography using artificial intelligence (AI) with sexual exploitation, was passed alongside it.

“In Saudi Arabia, public executions are carried out. If we are Muslims, our stance should be correct. What is happening in the world is not important; what Islam says is important." ISLAMABAD: The upper house of parliament has rejected a bill seeking public execution of sex offenders and rapists as a deterrent against such heinous crimes. Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan of the JI introduced the bill during the Senate's farewell session, chaired by Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani on Monday.

Before the storm In 1898, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld circulated a petition to abolish [Paragraph 175 criminalizing homosexual relations in Germany]. He obtained the signatures of prominent writers, lawyers, politicians, and church dignitaries. The petition was discussed in the Reichstag and rejected. Only the Social Democratic Party, under the guidance of August Bebel, pleaded the reform. Most deputies were outraged and did not hide their abhorrence.

David Renteria, 53, was pronounced dead at 7:11 p.m. CST following an injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the killing of Alexandra Flores. Renteria prayed, sang and asked for forgiveness before his execution. “I’m sorry for all the wrongs I have done. And for those who have called for my death, who are about to murder me, I forgive you,” he told those present in a loud, clear voice. He was pronounced dead 11 minutes later after receiving a lethal dose of pentobarbital, a powerful sedative.

David Renteria's claim that he kidnapped 5-year-old Alexandra Flores under duress never made it to trial, according to court records The state of Texas is set to execute a man later this week who in 2001 kidnapped a five-year-old girl from an El Paso Walmart before brutally murdering her, leaving behind her partially naked and burned body- to this day, he says a gang made him do it. David Renteria, 53, is scheduled to be executed on Thursday, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He was sentenced to death for the murder of Alexandra Flores, according to court records and records with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

David Renteria is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. local time on Thursday, November 16, 2023, inside the Walls Unit execution chamber at the Huntsville State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas.  53-year-old David is convicted of kidnapping and murdering 5-year-old Alexandra Flores on November 18, 2001, in El Paso, Texas.  David has spent the last 19 years of his life on death row in Texas.

The new law will likely draw legal challenges, as U.S. Supreme Court and Florida Supreme Court precedents have barred death sentences for rapists. TALLAHASSEE — A new law that could lead to imposing the death penalty on people who rape children under age 12 will take effect Sunday, along with other laws passed during the 2023 legislative session. Other measures taking effect could lead to putting local governments on the hook for attorney fees when ordinances are deemed “arbitrary or unreasonable;” increase penalties on fans who interfere with sporting events; and require teens to at least have learner’s permits to drive golf carts on public roads.

A New York man who was convicted 47 years ago of a rape he didn’t commit was freed this week after new DNA testing proved his innocence and pointed to another suspect who has now confessed to the crime, authorities said. Leonard Mack was found guilty of rape and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon after being accused of raping a high school girl in Greenburgh, N.Y., in 1975, per a statement from the Innocence Project, a non-profit organization that works to vindicate the wrongly convicted. Mack, who is a Vietnam War veteran and has lived with his wife in South Carolina for nearly 21 years, spent more than seven years in state prison for the crime.

U.S. no longer seeking death in Sjodin murder U.S. prosecutors said Tuesday that they will no longer seek the death penalty for a Minnesota man already on death row but awaiting resentencing for the kidnapping and killing of college student Dru Sjodin in 2003 — a case that led to changes in sex offender registration laws. U.S. Attorney Mac Schneider in North Dakota filed a notice with the court withdrawing his effort to seek the death penalty for Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. — a move he told The Associated Press he had to make after he was “straightforwardly directed by” Attorney General Merrick Garland to do so.