Death Penalty News

The court’s decision came a little more than two months after Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita asked the justices to schedule Weisheit’s execution. State attorneys argued Weisheit had exhausted his state and federal appeals, had no active stay of execution, and could lawfully be put to death. The inmate’s attorneys opposed setting a date, saying they needed more time to pursue available legal proceedings and possible executive clemency. The defense additionally pointed to public records that it said showed the Indiana Department of Correction lacked the drugs needed to conduct an execution and had no lawful source from which to obtain them.

OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has scheduled the execution of Air Force veteran and longtime death row prisoner Jim Pavatt for Nov. 12, as his attorneys continue to challenge his conviction and contend that prosecutors relied on false arguments, disputed forensic evidence and an alleged confession they later described as bogus. Pavatt, who served nearly 22 years in the Air Force and rose to the rank of master sergeant, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2001 killing of Rob Andrew in Oklahoma City. His execution is scheduled for the day after Veterans Day.

The ruling throws another wrench into the long-running death penalty case involving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the deadliest U.S. terrorist strikes. A U.S. military judge has thrown out Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's 2007 confession to FBI agents about his alleged lead role in the 9/11 attacks, ruling that it wasn’t given voluntarily and can’t be used against him at trial. The Aug. 28 ruling by the trial judge, Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Schrama, throws yet another wrench into the long-running death penalty case on the eve of the 25th anniversary of America’s deadliest terrorist strike that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Iranian authorities have executed at least seven prisoners, including a woman who had been subjected to forced marriage, two Gilak men and a Kurdish man, across prisons in Khorramabad, Sari, Rasht, Yazd and Isfahan. The prisoners, Arezou Rostad, Mostafa Vosoughi, Masoud Nemati, Esmaeil Ajami, Hedayat Jamalzadeh, Emad Sheikhi and Amir Danaei, had been sentenced to death in separate murder and drug-related cases. According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Mostafa Vosoughi, a 27-year-old Kurdish man from Rivasan village in Delfan (Nurabad) County, was executed at Khorramabad Central Prison at dawn on August 26, 2026. He had been arrested three years earlier on a murder charge and subsequently sentenced to death.

A U.S. air ‌force judge on Wednesday ordered Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, to face trial before a military tribunal in June 2028, along with three co-defendants. The trial-scheduling order entered by the air force's Lt.-Col. Michael Schrama ​marked the latest milestone in a military prosecution beset by ​two decades of legal deadlock surrounding the four detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia prison officials plan to execute a man next month who was convicted of fatally shooting two real estate agents in Atlanta’s suburbs more than two decades ago. Stacey Humphreys, 53, was convicted of malice murder in the 2003 killings of 33-year-old Cyndi Williams and 21-year-old Lori Brown. He is set to receive a lethal injection at the state prison near Jackson at 7 p.m. on Sept. 16, according to the Department of Corrections. Humphreys would be the first person executed in Georgia this year. The death penalty in the state has largely been tied up in litigation over an agreement related to the coronavirus pandemic that defense lawyers contend temporarily shields many death row residents from execution. The last execution in the state was in March 2024.

Iran allegedly plotted to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s eldest son, Yair, while he was living in South Florida, Newsmax reported on Wednesday, citing a US law enforcement source familiar with the matter. Israeli intelligence learned of the alleged plot in December and alerted US authorities, according to the source. Iranian operatives were believed to be in the Miami area and to have conducted surveillance of Yair Netanyahu’s home and movements. The 35-year-old, who lived in Hallandale Beach and was accompanied by an Israeli security detail, was reportedly instructed to leave immediately. He departed without collecting his belongings and returned to Israel, where he now lives.

A court in Iran has sentenced Leila Abolhassani, a 43-year-old mother of two teenage daughters detained during the January protests in the central city of Shahin Shahr, to death on charges of “waging war against God,” a source familiar with her case told Iran International. The source said Abolhassani was only filming a supermarket fire when she was arrested on the evening of January 8. Branch 5 of Isfahan’s Revolutionary Court nevertheless sentenced her to death on charges of participating in setting fire to the store. Abolhassani, who worked as a nail technician, was transferred following her arrest to Dowlatabad Prison in Isfahan, where she has been held for more than seven months.

Hossein Nazari, a 25-year-old citizen arrested during the January protests, has been sentenced to death by Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Mashhad. HRANA news agency reported on Wednesday, August 26, that the verdict was handed down in July and that Nazari is currently being held in Mashhad’s Vakilabad Prison. The court charged him with “communicating with hostile states and groups” and “assembly and collusion to commit crimes against national security.”  No details have been provided regarding the specific evidence cited by the court, the underlying acts supporting these charges, Nazari’s access to independent legal representation, or the legal proceedings of his trial.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a death warrant for Curtis. W. Beasley, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1998 for beating a Dundee woman to death with a hammer three years earlier. Beasley's execution by lethal injection is scheduled for Sept. 29, according to the warrant signed by DeSantis on Aug. 26. Since his conviction, Beasley, 77, of Haines City has maintained his innocence. The jury that recommended the judge impose a death sentence was not unanimous.

TAMPA, Fla. – Opening statements are underway in the capital murder trial of Billy Adams, the Tampa rapper known as “Ace N-H,” accused of killing 22-year-old Alana Sims while she was pregnant with his child. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Adams in connection with Sims’ January 30, 2023, killing. Sims’ mother, Shahlevi Sims, said the family lost both a daughter and an unborn child.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A man accused of killing clerks at two different stores in Tennessee over a three-day crime spree was arraigned in Crockett County Circuit Court Wednesday. District Attorney Frederick Agee told Judge Clayburn Peeples that the state will be seeking the death penalty against Corey Houge for the shooting death of Shahed Rana Moshsin, 36. Mohsin was killed during a robbery at the Safari Corner Market in Bells Sunday morning.

A death row inmate spent Monday in court so a lawyer could fight his death sentence, despite his own desire to die. In 2016, Scotty Ray Gardner was arrested for the murder of Susan Stubbs. His attorney says his desire to be executed was made clear during the months leading up to his conviction and sentencing. Public and private statements since Gardner's trial reaffirm his desire to be executed. Gardner has just finished his eighth year on death row. Meanwhile, his case is undergoing a standard appeals process. At the Faulkner County Courthouse in Conway on Monday, his new attorney Lee Short called Gardner's former attorney to the stand. Thomas Scott Brisendine represented Gardner in the initial 2018 murder trial.

Two more protesters detained during Iran’s nationwide demonstrations in January have been sentenced to death, US-based rights group HRANA reported, amid a rise in executions and capital sentences following the unrest. Hossein Nazari, 25, was sentenced to death by Branch One of the Revolutionary Court in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, HRANA reported Wednesday. He is being held in the city’s Vakilabad Prison. HRANA said Nazari was convicted of “contact with hostile governments and groups” and “assembly and collusion to commit a crime against national security.” The sentence was issued in July.

BROOKSVILLE, Fla. — A Hernando County jury has recommended the death penalty for a 65-year-old man who was found guilty last week of raping and killing 12-year-old Jennifer Odom. Sentencing for Jeffrey Crum was held this week. Crum abducted Odom in 1993 after she stepped off her school bus in Pasco County. Her body was found in a Hernando County orange grove six days later.

Tyrone Noling's fate is now up to Ohio's governor. The state Parole Board on Tuesday recommended that Gov. Mike DeWine spare the 54-year-old from execution by commuting his sentence to life with a chance at parole as soon as 2029.  NBC News reports one of the eight board members backed a full pardon, which DeWine—who in June called for ending the death penalty in the state—can still grant.  Five members voted in favor of commuting his sentence, while two were against. The Akron Beacon Journal reports there is no deadline for DeWine's decision. Noling, who was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1990 murders of Cora and Bearnhardt Hartig, has long maintained his innocence; no physical evidence tied him to the crime, and the teen witnesses who implicated him later recanted, saying police pressured them.  The Ohio Innocence Project points to suppressed evidence and alternative suspects, including a man later executed for another killing. Noling, for his part, had requested a ...

Iranian authorities have executed nine prisoners, including two Lor and two Baloch men, across prisons in Zahedan, Borujerd, Yazd, Khorramabad, Isfahan and Mashhad. The prisoners, identified as Taha Khavari, Lotfollah Ahmadvand, Omid Shahouzehi, Ali Asghar Salarzehi, Saleh Zeidabadi, Merat Zeidabadi, Mahmoud Talebi, Hossein Hessari and Faramarz Baghbani, had been sentenced to death in separate cases on drug-related or murder charges.

At least six prisoners have been executed in recent days in Adelabad Prison in Shiraz and prisons in Semnan, Dehdasht, Dezful, and Ilam. They had previously been sentenced to death or qisas (retribution in kind) on charges related to “drug offenses” or “premeditated murder.” According to a report received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Bahram (Qahreman) Keshavarzi, from Beyza County, was executed in Adelabad Prison in Shiraz at dawn on Monday, August 24, 2026. He had previously been arrested on charges related to “drug offenses” and sentenced to death.

The rape and murder of a 3-year-old girl in Nepal has sparked widespread outrage and protests in the Himalayan country, with activists and politicians demanding tougher laws on rape, including calls for the death penalty to be imposed for the crime. The little girl went missing from her home in Bara, about 80 miles south of the capital Kathmandu, on August 16. Her body was found at an abandoned house three days later. Police registered a case of rape and murder and have arrested nine suspects, including a bus driver and a 16-year-old boy who worked on the same bus, who they accuse of luring the girl into the attack with chocolate.

"It is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, and must be stopped, NOW," U.S. President Donald Trump said  U.S. President Donald Trump expressed outrage on Tuesday (August 25, 2026) at the mounting number of executions in Iran of people allegedly involved in mass protests earlier this year before the West Asia war began.  "The failing Islamic Republic of Iran is not paying large segments of their military, while at the same time killing protesters, even when they are not protesting, at levels not seen before," he wrote on Truth Social.