Death Penalty News

BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — The firing squad will become the primary method of execution in the State of Idaho starting July 1, 2026. Those in support of the change argue it's a more humane and efficient method, while some are more skeptical. Idaho is now one of five states to authorize the firing squad as a means of execution. Other states include Mississippi, Oklahoma, Utah and South Carolina. Where Idaho differs, it's the only state to make it the primary method.

South Carolina didn’t seek a death sentence the first time. Murdaugh is poised to challenge any attempt to do so now as illegally “vindictive.” After South Carolina’s Supreme Court reversed Alex Murdaugh ’s double-murder conviction and life sentence last week, the state’s attorney general, Alan Wilson, said the death penalty is “on the table” for a retrial against the ex-attorney who was found guilty in 2023 of killing his wife, Maggie, and their son Paul in 2021. But introducing the prospect of capital punishment could further complicate the state’s case in what’s already been a tortured legal process.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (FOX Carolina) - Alex Murdaugh’s defense attorneys are questioning a statement from the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office about his fate after a retrial. Murdaugh, who was convicted in 2023 of killing his wife and son, was granted a new trial by the South Carolina Supreme Court. Attorney General Alan Wilson issued a statement saying, ”In light of the Supreme Court’s decision, we’re back to square one on this case, and that means all our legal options are on the table, including the death penalty." Murdaugh’s lawyers held a press conference on Monday to discuss a related federal lawsuit he has filed against the former Colleton County clerk of court. “I had hoped that would have been the main topic of this press conference, but over the weekend we learned that the Attorney General has announced he’s considering the death penalty in this case,” attorney Dick Harpootlian said. “Clearly, he is not talking to the lawyers in his office. He’s probably talking to his ...

Alan Wilson said prosecutors are “back to square one” and all legal options are on the table. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said Friday that his office may pursue the death penalty when it retries Alex Murdaugh in the 2021 murder of his son and wife. “In light of the Supreme Court’s decision, we’re back to square one on this case, and that means all our legal options are on the table, including the death penalty,” Wilson said. The state’s high court reversed Murdaugh’s double murder conviction in an opinion published Wednesday that accused a former court clerk of “egregious” jury interference.

The South Carolina Supreme Court has unanimously ruled to overturn the 2023 double murder conviction of disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh. In its 27-page, 5-0 ruling issued on Wednesday, the court determined that jury tampering by former Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca “Becky” Hill denied Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.  Murdaugh’s case will now return to circuit court, where he is eligible for a new trial. He stands accused of killing his wife, Maggie, and younger son, Paul, at the family’s rural estate in Colleton County on the evening of June 7, 2021.

Cumberland County prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a Fayetteville man accused of slaughtering his grandmother, 13-year-old sister and 4-year-old cousin in an attack at the family home from which other children — including an 11-year-old who called 911 — escaped. The state's formal declaration that Mackendy Darbouze would be tried for his life came during a May 7 hearing in Cumberland County Superior Court. Darbouze, 26, a native of Haiti, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the Feb. 21, 2025, deaths of Beatrice Desir, 77, Gloria Darbouze, 13, and Garmaelle Joseph, 4, according to court records. The night of his arrest, Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed a detainer on him.

SPARTANBURG — A 59-year-old man sentenced to death for killing a state trooper in Greenville County in 2000 can’t be executed because of a mental illness that’s left him incoherent and believing he’s immortal, a Circuit Court judge has ruled. John Richard Wood is the first condemned inmate in South Carolina found not competent to be executed since the state restarted capital punishment in September 2024. The seven executions since then include three men who chose to die by firing squad — the latest in November. Wood, convicted 24 years ago, was among death row inmates in line to receive a death warrant after exhausting their regular appeals.

South Carolina-based journalist Jeffrey Collins observed back-to-back executions in 2025 after the state revived the death penalty following a 13-year pause Jeffrey Collins has watched 14 men draw their final breaths. Over 25 years at the Associated Press, the South Carolina-based journalist has repeatedly served as an observer inside the state’s execution chamber, watching from feet away as prison officials kill men who were sentenced to capital punishment. South Carolina has recently kept him unusually busy, with seven back-to-back executions in 14 months.

Executions in the U.S. nearly doubled in 2025 over the previous year as Florida executed more prisoners in a 12-month span than ever before, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The organization, which tracks capital punishment, released its year-end report on Monday. It showed a complicated picture: although public support for the death penalty remained at a low point, executions ticked upward. "These trends show there is a real disconnect between what the American public wants and what elected officials are doing with the death penalty," said Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI). The group does not take a position on the death penalty itself but is critical of how it has been applied.

South Carolina executes killer who left bloody message, marking third firing-squad execution this year  A South Carolina man convicted of killing 3 people over 5 days more than 20 years ago was executed by a firing squad on Friday evening.  Stephen Bryant, 44, was executed for killing a man in his home and writing "catch me if u can" on the wall with the victim's blood. He was pronounced dead at 6:05 p.m. following a firing squad. Three prison employees, all with live ammunition, volunteered to carry out the execution. Bryant is the 3rd man this year to die by South Carolina's newest execution method. 

A man on death row in South Carolina is scheduled to be executed by firing squad COLUMBIA, S.C. -- A man in South Carolina is scheduled to be executed Friday by a firing squad, the third person to die by that method in the state this year. Three prison employees, all with live ammunition, have volunteered to carry out the execution of Stephen Bryant, 44, who killed three people in five days in a rural area of the state in 2004. Bryant has no appeals pending before the 6 p.m. scheduled execution at the death row facility at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia.

Stephen Bryant will be the third person executed by firing squad in South Carolina since executions resumed in 2024 COLUMBIA, S.C. — A Sumter man whose killing spree left three dead has chosen to be executed by firing squad. Stephen Bryant who shot and killed his victims with a stolen gun, robbed their homes and taunted police with a message scrawled in one victim’s blood will be executed on Nov. 14 . He will be the third person executed by firing squad in South Carolina.

Stephen Bryant pleaded guilty to killing three people during an eight-day crime spree in 2004 COLUMBIA — A death row inmate who killed three people 21 years ago as he taunted police with a message in blood, then beat up an officer after he was jailed, is scheduled for execution Nov. 14, according to a Friday death warrant. Stephen Bryant, 44, is slated to be the fifth person in the state put to death this year and the seventh total since executions resumed last September following an unintended 13-year hiatus. Bryant pleaded guilty in 2008 to a number of crimes, including three Sumter County murders, four years prior.

Fred Singleton couldn’t receive a death warrant because he was considered mentally incompetent COLUMBIA — South Carolina ’s longest-serving death row inmate died this week in a prison infirmary of natural causes, the Department of Corrections said Friday. Fred Singleton, 81, died Monday, according to an online post by the agency that oversees the state’s prisons. He was one of 25 inmates on death row at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia after executions resumed in September 2024.

A local prosecutor in South Carolina plans to seek the death penalty against a man whose federal death sentence for killing two bank employees was commuted to life in prison by President Joe Biden COLUMBIA, S.C. -- A local prosecutor in South Carolina said Tuesday he will seek the death penalty against a man whose federal death sentence for killing two bank employees in a robbery was commuted to life in prison by President Joe Biden at the end of his term. Brandon Council, 40, did not appear in state court in Horry County as prosecutors formally let the court know that if he is convicted of murder they will ask a jury to sentence him to death.

State Attorney General Alan Wilson has joined a coalition of 20 attorneys general supporting efforts to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana. In a letter sent to the Department of Justice and the White House General Counsel’s office, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson is among 20 attorneys general pushing to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana , which barred states from imposing the death penalty in cases of child rape where the victim did not die. The coalition of attorneys general argues that Kennedy was wrongly decided and that the Constitution allows capital punishment for the most horrific crimes against children.

Officials took a former death row prisoner from his cell in Terre Haute and transported him to South Carolina over the weekend. Brandon Council, 40, is now likely to face state charges for a 2017 double murder that resulted in his original federal death sentence. Former President Joe Biden reduced that sentence to life without parole in a mass clemency decision last year. But prosecutors in South Carolina have indicated in recent months that they were considering re-charging Council with the murders of two bank tellers, Donna Major and Kathryn Skeen, in the 2017 armed robbery.

As the days tick down to Ralph Menzies’ execution, anti-death penalty advocates said Friday that a firing squad leaves open the possibility for human error and potential suffering.  Menzies is scheduled to die on Sept. 5 for kidnapping and murdering Maurine Hunsaker in 1986 — he is still awaiting a ruling from the Utah Supreme Court, which is considering whether his dementia warrants a pause in execution proceedings for a new competency evaluation.  If the execution does happen, it would be the 4th firing squad the U.S. has seen in 15 years, and just the 6th since executions resumed in 1977.

The Groningen court ruled against extraditing the American Kendra Leigh W. to the United States, where she is wanted for the murder of her ex-husband.  According to the court, there is too much uncertainty about whether the woman will face the death penalty if she is returned to the state of South Carolina, RTV Noord reports. W. is suspected of murdering her 29-year-old ex-husband, Connor Lloyd, four years ago. He was shot dead in his driveway in the city of Lyman.

With lethal injection drugs proving both costly and difficult to obtain, a growing number of Republican lawmakers and state officials are pushing for an alternative: the firing squad. Lethal injection is currently the only method of execution authorized under Indiana law. After a yearslong pause, the state resumed executions in December, using a single-drug protocol of pentobarbital to put Joseph Corcoran to death. A second execution followed in May, when Benjamin Ritchie was executed with the same drug. Together, they marked Indiana’s first executions since 2009.