Death Penalty News

Richard Glossip, 59, was sentenced to death in Oklahoma in 2004. Since then, he's eaten his last meal three times. Richard Glossip, an inmate on Oklahoma’s death row, had a message for those advocating his innocence last year: “God has spared me many times, and I know that he will spare me again.”  Glossip, 59, was referring to his state’s three failed attempts to take his life over the last 25 years. The first, back in 2015, was delayed due to a Supreme Court case against the state. The second, later that year, was stayed a mere three hours before Glossip was scheduled to be put to death. A new execution date was set for that same month but was then cancelled after the state discovered they had the wrong drug. Now, Oklahoma is ready to try again. At the start of July, officials set his fourth execution date, for Sept. 22. Glossip is one of 25 inmates who have had their executions scheduled in Oklahoma over the next 29 months.  Glossip was convicted of murder-for-hire after a ...

Malay man had been in prison for 7 years before mandatory death sentence carried out. A 49-year-old man in a Singapore prison since 2015 for trafficking cannabis was put to death this week. A tweet from writer, researcher and community organizer Kokila Annamalai noted that confirmation had been received that the man was executed at Changi Prison after earlier being convicted of cannabis trafficking. Many people who commented on Annamalai’s post voiced frustration. “Killed for selling the plant my dad grows in his back garden in Canada,” one poster wrote. “I’m hoping that the rise of social media disrupts the Singaporean government’s media stranglehold on narrative and leads to real change,” added another. Drug trafficking carries a death sentence According to Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB), a government agency, a person convicted of illegally trafficking, importing or exporting cannabis “may face the death penalty,” depending on the amount of drug involved. RELATED | Doubl...

Joe Nathan James Jr. executed for 1994 killing of ex-girlfriend in Alabama Alabama death row inmate Joe Nathan James Jr. was executed by lethal injection Thursday night for the slaying of his ex-girlfriend nearly 3 decades ago. It’s an execution the victim’s family fought to keep from happening. The 50-year-old James was executed at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. The prison is where death row inmates in the state are housed, and is the only state facility with an execution chamber. He was set to be put to death at 6 p.m., but the prison did not transport media witnesses to Holman until 6:33 p.m. After an over 2-hour delay with media witnesses waiting in a prison van, the execution began at 9 p.m. and the death warrant was read at 9:03 p.m. James’ eyes were closed for the entire procedure and he had no last words when briefly asked by the warden. The IV attached to James’ arm shook slightly with movement at 9:05 p.m, and one minute later James appeared to have la...

Though capital punishment is in global decline, there are horrifying exceptions to the general trend Next month, Oklahoma will embark on a grim schedule: an execution nearly every month until the end of 2024. In September, it is due to execute Richard Glossip, whom many believe to be the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice. A 5-year moratorium has come to an end with the failure of a lawsuit arguing that the use of lethal injections was unconstitutional. Oklahoma is not the only place that is enthusiastically resuming state-sanctioned killing after a pause. Myanmar’s rulers announced on Monday that they had executed 4 prisoners, including Phyo Zeya Thaw, a rapper and former MP, drawing international condemnation. This was the first time the death penalty had been used there for more than 30 years, said the UN. And on Tuesday it emerged that Tomohiro Kato has been executed in Japan for stabbing seven people to death in 2008. Recorded executions fell sharply in 2020 across the wo...

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); July 27, 2022: Gholam Nourzehi, a Baluch man, Afghan-national Jomeh Barakzehi and Mohammad Izadi were executed in Isfahan Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, two men were executed in Isfahan Central Prison on July 26. Their identities have been established as 40-year-old Gholam Nourzehi, a Baluch man living in Isfahan and 38-year-old Jomeh Barakzehi, an Afghan national who were sentenced to death for drug-related charges in the same case. Hal Vash which first reported their executions writes that they were arrested in Isfahan as part of the same case three years and detained in Isfahan Central Prison since. Hal Vash has also reported the execution of another man at the prison on July 25. His identity has been reported as 35-year-old Mohammad Izadi who was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder after being arrested five years ago. At the time of writing, none of their executions have been reported by domestic m...

Japan has carried out executions of 98 death-row inmates since 2000. The standards used to decide whom to execute are not clear and seem to reflect the particular outlook of the justice minister serving at the time. The perpetrator of a 2008 stabbing spree that left 7 people dead and 10 injured in Akihabara, Tokyo, was executed on July 26, 2022. It is 14 years since Kato Tomohiro carried out his attack, and more than 7 since his death sentence was finalized. Kato drove a truck into a crowd in a pedestrian zone near Akihabara Station before leaving the vehicle and indiscriminately stabbing people in the area. Japan’s Code of Criminal Procedure stipulates that the death penalty should be implemented within six months of the issuing of the sentence, but in fact that is almost never the case. From the beginning of 2000 to July 26, 2022, 98 death sentences have been carried out. The shortest time span from sentencing to execution was one year, while the longest was 19 years and 5 months. T...

Former Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry and former U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Lester, who co-chaired the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission in 2017, have called on state officials to halt the scheduled executions of 25 death-row prisoners. In a guest column in The Oklahoman on July 24, 2022, Gov. Henry, a Democrat, and Lester, a Republican, write that “All Oklahomans, regardless of one’s stance on capital punishment, should insist on an unwavering commitment to fairness and accuracy” in death penalty cases. Instead, they say, “the state is barreling ahead with an unprecedented number of executions despite the numerous flaws in the implementation of the death penalty.” The Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission was created in March 2016 during a pause in state executions in the wake of the botched 2014 and 2015 executions of Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner and the September 2015 near-execution of Richard Glossip in which the state violated its own lethal injection protocol by ob...

Two more prisoners convicted of drug offences will hang on Aug 2 despite widespread condemnation of Singapore's continued use of the death sentence. Singapore has scheduled the hangings of two more death row prisoners convicted of drug offences on Aug 2, bringing the number of known execution notices issued so far this year to 12. Anti-death penalty activist Kirsten Han said one of the prisoners was a Singaporean in his 40s while the other was a Malaysian in his 30s.  Both of them were plaintiffs in a suit accusing the Singapore government of racial bias in their prosecutions in capital punishment cases.   Singapore has so far hanged two of the 17 plaintiffs, whose suit was thrown out last year.  On July 22, 64-year-old Nazeri Lajim was executed despite a last-minute bid for more time to say good-bye to his family members.  He was sentenced to death in 2017, five years after he was arrested with two bundles containing heroin which he said were for his own use....

With execution drugs in short supply across the nation and increasing secrecy about the companies that provide them, The Texas Tribune is keeping track of movement in the state’s supply. Since 1977, lethal injection has been the method for executing Texas criminals sentenced to death. But the drugs used in executions have changed over the years, as the state has struggled to get a hold of enough life-ending doses. Texas, along with other states that hold executions, has been engaged in a battle for years to keep an adequate inventory of execution drugs. Currently, the state uses only pentobarbital, a sedative it has purchased from compounding pharmacies kept secret from the public. To promote transparency, The Texas Tribune has obtained the inventory history and current supply of execution drugs held by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The information, collected through continuous open records requests, is updated regularly with the available doses and recent changes to the st...