Death Penalty News

The Islamic Republic’s authorities have executed at least sixteen people in a single day. According to a report by the Iran Human Rights Organization, the death sentences of 13 men and one woman were carried out on Wednesday at Karaj Central Prison. On the same day, two other prisoners were also executed at Urmia Central Prison. The charges against these prisoners were listed as “premeditated murder,” “rape,” or drug-related offenses, for which they had been sentenced to death.

(Austin, Texas, October 11, 2024) - The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) – without a written opinion – has denied Robert Roberson’s request to stay his execution, scheduled for Thursday, October 17. The CCA also denied, without issuing an opinion, Mr. Roberson’s request that the Court reconsider its denial of post-conviction relief. The CCA, once again, failed to consider any of the extensive medical and scientific evidence Mr. Roberson has submitted demonstrating that his chronically ill, two-year-old daughter, Nikki, died from illness, accident, and medical error, not because of any abuse.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) -Alabama is on track to tie its record for the most executions in a single year, as Derrick Dearman, a 35-year-old Mississippi man, is scheduled to be put to death next Thursday for the 2016 murders of five people in Mobile County. Described by officials as a “gruesome and horrific” crime, Dearman was convicted of using an axe and a gun to kill his five of his girlfriend’s relatives.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); October 6, 2024: Ghafar Hivechi, a man on death row for murder, was executed in Gonbad Kavous Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Gonbad Kavous Prison in Golestan province on 1st October. His identity has been established as 35-year-old Ghafar Hivechi from the Doughman Turkman tribe. He was arrested four years ago and sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder by the Criminal Court.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned a Dallas man’s conviction for hurting his girlfriend’s child due to scientific research that casts doubt on the existence of shaken baby syndrome. Now lawyers for Robert Roberson — another man on death row — hope the court’s reasoning will apply to their client as well. Andrew Wayne Roark was sentenced to 35 years in prison in March 2000 for the injuries his girlfriend’s 13-month-old baby sustained while in his care. Roark was convicted after prosecutors argued the infant suffered shaken baby syndrome and shaken impact syndrome, indicating Roark violently shook her and possibly struck her against something, leading to bleeding in her brain.

On the eve of World Day Against the Death Penalty, judicial authorities in Iran executed 11 prisoners, including a woman and a retired educator, at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Alborz Province early on Wednesday, October 9. On Wednesday, at least 11 prisoners, including six “security” prisoners, a woman, and a retired educator, were executed by the judicial authorities of the Iranian regime at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Alborz Province.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court appeared likely Wednesday to give Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip at least another day in court in his long quest to throw out his murder conviction and death sentence. The justices heard arguments in a case that has produced a rare alliance in which lawyers for Glossip and the state argued that the high court should overturn Glossip’s conviction and death sentence because he did not get a fair trial. The victim’s relatives have told the high court that they want to see Glossip executed.

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 10 - Malaysia's top court set aside the death penalty on Thursday for a former policeman convicted of the murder of a Mongolian woman, sentencing him instead to 40 years in jail, his lawyer said. The change comes after Malaysia abolished the mandatory death penalty last year, allowing those on death row to seek review of their sentences. Azilah Hadri had been handed the death penalty after being found guilty of the 2006 murder of 28-year-old Altantuya Shaariibuu, a model and interpreter to a former associate of former Prime Minister Najib Razak.

While several Asian governments have taken steps to reduce their reliance on capital punishment, Singapore marks the 22nd World Day Against the Death Penalty by continuing to execute death-row prisoners and muzzling anti-death penalty activists. The number of countries that have not abolished or imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in law or in practice has been shrinking. Under article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, countries that have not abolished the death penalty should reserve its use “only for the most serious crimes.” A group of United Nations human rights experts said in 2023 that drug offenses “clearly do not meet this threshold.”

A federal judge heard testimony Tuesday about what happened during the nation’s first two nitrogen gas executions, weighing whether to allow Alabama to use that method again next month to put an inmate to death. Attorneys for Carey Dale Grayson are asking a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction to block the prisoner's scheduled Nov. 21 execution with nitrogen gas.  The attorneys say Alabama officials must make changes to the procedure, adding in a court filing that state officials “have chosen to ignore clear and obvious signs the current protocol contains major problems.”

The Indiana Department of Correction has refused to disclose how much the state paid to acquire a new execution drug, pentobarbital, that could be used to carry out at least one death warrant before the end of the year. The agency officially denied the Indiana Capital Chronicle’s public record request Tuesday, citing a state law that makes information about the source of execution drugs confidential. Lawmakers made the code change on the last day of the 2017 legislative session but the statute does not mention cost.

At the Supreme Court Tuesday, a true crime drama that features a man who has been on death row for more than 25 years, always insisting he is innocent, and a conservative state attorney general in Oklahoma who agrees the prisoner got an unfair trial. Richard Glossip has had nine execution dates set over the years; he's eaten his last meal three times. He was tried twice and has had multiple appeals, including one that was heard by the Supreme Court involving the proposed method of execution. When the Supreme Court heard that case in 2015, Justice Samuel Alito made it clear that he viewed the appeal as nothing more than a stalling tactic, asking, "Is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty?"

TOKYO —  Japanese prosecutors said on Tuesday they will not appeal against last month's acquittal of the world's longest-serving death row prisoner, Iwao Hakamada. After a long fight for justice led by his sister, a court declared last month that Hakamada, 88, was innocent of the quadruple murder for which he spent 46 years waiting to be executed, mostly in solitary confinement. The court in Shizuoka, outside Tokyo, ruled that police tampered with evidence and said the ex-boxer had suffered "inhumane interrogations meant to force a statement" that he later withdrew.

MANILA, Philippines — A Filipino national in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been executed for the murder of a Saudi national, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday, October 8.  The foreign affairs department said the Philippine government provided legal assistance and explored all possible means to stay the Filipino national's execution or to reduce his punishment, but authorities proceeded to use the death penalty after the victim's family refused to accept blood money, a form of financial compensation under Islamic law for heinous crimes. 

Decision closes book on a case that resulted in man spending half a century on death row Japanese prosecutors do not plan to appeal the recent acquittal in the retrial of a former professional boxer who was sentenced to death for a 1966 quadruple murder, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, paving the way for the ruling to be finalised. Iwao Hakamada, 88, spent nearly half a century on death row before new evidence led to his release from incarceration in 2014.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas man set to die this month is at the center of another push for clemency in the U.S., this time backed by several GOP lawmakers and bestselling author John Grisham, who say a father’s 2002 conviction for killing his infant daughter deserves a second look. Their pleas to spare Robert Roberson, who is set to die by lethal injection on Oct. 17, comes after Missouri and Oklahoma carried out executions last month over calls to grant two condemned men lesser punishments, underlining how rare clemency remains for death row prisoners.

The rights group called the home minister's directive a 'demonstration of state power, not of truth-seeking' A Singapore-based rights group has denounced the government for forcing them to retract their earlier statement accusing the administration of conducting the arbitrary execution of a citizen convicted of drug possession. In a press release issued on Oct. 6, the Transformative Justice Collective (TJC), while accepting the government directive to retract their statements, said it “categorically rejects the government’s claim,” that the group spread falsehoods. 

This year, Saudi Arabia recorded the highest number of executions in its history, surpassing the previous record of 196 executions in 2022, as reported by the Human Rights Commission. With 197 executions recorded in 2024, the total number of executions carried out during the decade of King Salman bin Abdulaziz's rule, alongside Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has reached 1,336 .

The availability of DNA testing has had a profound impact on the American criminal justice system and on the way Americans think about that system. Time and again, DNA has shown that our criminal justice system is anything but foolproof. The Innocence Project reports that between the first DNA exoneration in 1989 and April 2023, “575 wrongly convicted people have been exonerated based on DNA tests that demonstrated their innocence.” During that same time period, DNA played a key role in the exonerations of 35 people who had been convicted of a capital crime. That is part of the reason why a majority of Americans now believe that the death penalty is applied unfairly.

Execution of 30 prisoners, including three women, on October 1 and 2, 2024, and 255 executions since Pezeshkian [President of Iran] took office Mrs. Maryam Rajavi: On the eve of the World Day Against the Death Penalty, I call on the international community to support the campaign against executions and to make relations with the Iranian regime conditional on stopping torture and executions. The regime’s leaders must face justice for crimes against humanity and genocide.