Death Penalty News

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 17 September 2026: In a new report on the deadly crackdown on the January 2026 protests, IHRNGO has published a list of more than 4,200 people killed.  The list is the result of months of collecting information, cross-checking sources and verifying victims’ identities, providing an extensive body of documentation on the killing of protesters in Iran. Among those identified are at least 420 women and 281 children under the age of 18.  Twenty-five of the children were under 14, and the youngest victim documented was just four and a half months old.

Georgia prison physician Carlo Musso was one of the rare doctors who’d openly talked about his role in lethal injections . After he stepped away from that work last decade, the state has made it difficult to determine who replaced him. The role Musso held is so controversial that more than a dozen states have made it illegal to disclose the names of those involved with lethal injections. Georgia is among them. The state, through its Lethal Injections Secrecy Act, has gone to great lengths to hide the details around how it carries out lethal injections.

Texas kills man by lethal injection in state’s fifth execution this year A man convicted over the shooting deaths of 3 people was executed on Wednesday in Texas, while another execution scheduled for the same time in Georgia was halted by a judge.  It’s the 5th execution in Texas this year. Georgia has yet to put anyone to death this year. The nation’s busiest death chamber is in Florida, which accounted for more than 1/2 the 25 executions already carried out in the US this year. 

LeJames Norman would become the 5th inmate put to death by the state this year barring a U.S. Supreme Court reprieve. His codefendant is scheduled for execution a week later.  LeJames Norman, 1 of 2 men sentenced to death for killing three people in a robbery, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday barring a final reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court.  In 2005, Norman and Ker’sean Olajuwa Ramey broke into a neighbor’s home in Edna intending to steal cocaine, according to court records. The 2 then got into an altercation with the occupants of the home and killed Celso Lopez, Tiffani Peacock and Sam Roberts. While Norman initially fled to Mexico after the killings, he was apprehended by Border Patrol when he re-entered the country and subsequently cooperated with police, including by testifying at Ramey’s trial. 

Lawyers for Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, filed a 226-page clemen­cy peti­tion with Governor Bill Lee, ask­ing him to com­mute her death sen­tence to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole ahead of her September 30 exe­cu­tion date. Ms. Pike’s clemen­cy peti­tion out­lines the case her team has built over decades of appeals: her actions at 18 years old can­not be sep­a­rat­ed from a child­hood marked by repeat­ed rape, sex­u­al abuse, and neglect that went unad­dressed by the adults and state sys­tems meant to pro­tect her. Once incar­cer­at­ed, Ms. Pike was diag­nosed with bipo­lar dis­or­der and post-trau­mat­ic stress disorder.

Iranian authorities have executed Kurdish prisoner Fereydoun Akbarzadeh at Ilam Central Prison. He had previously been sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder.” According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Akbarzadeh, from Sarableh County in Ilam Province, was executed at dawn on Tuesday, September 15, 2026, at Ilam Central Prison. Hengaw sources said Akbarzadeh had previously been arrested on charges of premeditated murder and was subsequently sentenced to death by the Iranian judiciary.

State prosecutors say decision takes family’s wishes into account; Nick Reiner, 33, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges over killing of late Hollywood icon and his wife LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) — The Los Angeles County District Attorney said on Tuesday his office has chosen not to seek the death penalty against Nick Reiner, the son of Hollywood filmmaker Rob Reiner, who has pleaded not guilty to murdering his parents in their home in December. District Attorney Nathan Hochman told reporters outside a downtown Los Angeles courthouse that prosecutors took into account the wishes of the surviving Reiner family members in reaching their decision.

A man convicted in the shooting deaths of three people is set to be executed Wednesday in Texas. Meanwhile, another execution that was scheduled for the same time in Georgia has been halted by a judge. This would be the fifth execution in Texas, while Georgia has yet to put anyone to death this year. The nation’s busiest death chamber is in Florida, which accounted for more than half the 25 executions already carried out in the U.S. this year.

British consular incidents involving suspected ‘drug mules’ grew from 80 in 2023 to above 340 in 2025.  The number of British nationals detained overseas on drug trafficking charges has surged more than 4-fold over 3 years, official figures show, alongside a government warning that penalties include life imprisonment and the death sentence.  Consular incidents involving suspected "drug mules" grew from 80 in 2023 to above 340 in 2025, with at least 160 recorded so far this year.  Over 200 UK citizens are presently held in foreign custody for smuggling cannabis originating in Thailand. Around 60% of those caught since 2024 are aged between 16 and 30. 

CLEARWATER, Fla. — A former plastic surgeon accused of killing an attorney involved in a lawsuit against his former employer will put his fate in the hands of a judge. Tomasz Kosowski has waived his right to a jury trial in the murder of attorney Steven Cozzi, according to court records. He has also waived his right to have a jury determine his sentence if he is convicted and the case proceeds to a penalty phase. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Kosowski plans to represent himself.

Death row inmate Lin Wang-jen (林旺仁), who was convicted of setting fire to a karaoke bar in 2004, killing five people, yesterday died of an illness, authorities confirmed. The number of inmates on death row has fallen to 34, correctional authorities said late yesterday, after local media reported that Lin had died in hospital. Lin, a Yilan County resident, was sentenced to death for murder in 2004. In 2011, the Supreme Court upheld his sentence. Lin set fire to a karaoke bar in Keelung on June 16, 2004, because he was upset with his wife for accepting a job there, court rulings said.

Alabama plans to execute Jeffery Lee on Thursday via lethal injection after a down-to-the-wire decision by the federal courts halted his death by nitrogen hypoxia in June. In response, Gov. Kay Ivey set the 30-hour window for the execution to be carried out by lethal injection beginning at 12 a.m. on Thursday, September 17, and expiring at 6 a.m. on Friday, September 18. Barring any further court action, the execution will take place at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.

Every resident of a building on Tehran’s Sheikh Hadi Street was arrested after several stones were thrown from its rooftop at repressive forces during the January protests. Months later, four of those detained were sentenced to death, and the Supreme Court has now rejected the appeal of one of the defendants. Information obtained by IranWire confirms that Branch 9 of the Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of Mohammad Reza Majidi-Asl, putting him at immediate risk of execution.

On Sept. 11, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a death warrant for William Thompson, convicted of the 1976 kidnapping, rape, and murder of 23-year-old Sally Ivester. Thompson, now 74, and another man were staying in a Miami Beach hotel room with Ivester and another woman, according to court records. After Ivester was unable to get money from her mother, the men beat and tortured her, prosecutors said. She died from internal bleeding and multiple injuries. Thompson was convicted in 1978 of kidnapping, rape, and first-degree murder.

Iranian authorities executed Abdolrahim Narouei Rouzaneh, a 47-year-old Baloch prisoner from Zabol, in Isfahan Central Prison (Dastgerd Prison). He had previously been sentenced to death on drug-related charges. Based on information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Narouei Rouzaneh, a married father of nine from Zabol, Sistan and Baluchistan Province, was executed at dawn on Monday, September 14, 2026, in Dastgerd Prison.

An Iranian court has handed down a death sentence to a man detained in connection with the January 2026 protests in the northeastern city of Shandiz, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported on Sunday. Hossein Rasouli-Nasab was sentenced by the Mashhad Revolutionary Court on charges including “ moharebeh ,” or waging war against God, HRANA said. The rights group said authorities had alleged that he committed moharebeh through participation in the destruction of public property and setting fire to religious centers. He was also accused of assembly and collusion against national security.

At least eight women are facing death sentences in prisons across Iran, including four in cases linked to the nationwide January protests, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) rights group reported on Sunday. HRANA said the women had been sentenced in separate political, security, and protest-related cases on charges including “armed rebellion,” “enmity against God," and “corruption on earth,” offenses that can carry the death penalty under Iran’s Islamic penal code. The cases were heard by branches of the Revolutionary Courts in Tehran, Isfahan, Rasht, and Bandar Abbas, the group said.

Marziyeh “Sevda” Ebrahimi Shamsabadi, a 33-year-old blogger from Bandar Abbas who has been detained since March, has been sentenced to death, according to information obtained by Iran International. Branch 3 of the Bandar Abbas Revolutionary Court convicted her on charges including insulting Iran's supreme leader, media and propaganda activity against national security, intelligence and security activity on behalf of hostile governments, and taking and sending photographs to Persian-language media abroad, according to the information.

Iran has executed at least 29 people arrested in connection with the widespread protests in January, more than half of whom were not accused of killing anyone, with some put to death in public in what rights groups describe as a campaign to deter further dissent. The findings are contained in a new joint report by Human Rights Watch and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran examining executions following the nationwide protests that erupted in late 2025 and January 2026.

Kneeling next to a ditch, deep in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, a 22-year-old woman draws her last breath in a 'desert court' before she is shot in the back with an AK-47. Her executioner? Likely her hardline militant husband, in what the Taliban consider an 'honour killing'.  It took less than an hour to decide Najiba had been adulterous – although it has been suggested this accusation was fabricated to protect her husband's reputation. Adultery is a crime that deserves capital punishment under the Taliban's strict interpretation of Sharia law. Fourteen years on from her death, little is known about her story, like many women slowly being erased from the fabric of Afghan society.