Death Penalty News

The Islamic Republic has executed eight more prisoners over the past few days amid a significant spike in death penalties. On April 14, 2024, Hamedan Prison executed Arsalan Hashemi, a man convicted of drug offenses, according to human rights group HRANA.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); April 15 2024: Marjan Hajizadeh and Esmail Hassaniani, a couple sentenced to death for drug-related charges in a joint case, were executed in Zanjan Central Prison.  Marjan is reported to have been 16 at the time of arrest, which IHRNGO is working to confirm. If verified, she will be the first child offender executed for drug charges since 2014. She was also a child bride forced into marriage.

KOTA BHARU: A former excavator driver escaped the death penalty after the Federal Court commuted his sentence to 38 years in prison and 12 lashes for killing a woman 16 years ago. The case was one of 28 cases reviewed during the Federal Court of Malaysia Conference at the Kota Bharu High Court today, which also involved cases in other east coast states.

On Tuesday, April 16, the driver identified as having deliberately run over 23-year-old doctoral student Badr Bouljoihel received the death penalty. In 2019, the accused was convicted for similar offenses, where the manslaughter was deemed involuntary. The criminal chamber of first instance of the Casablanca Court of Appeal sentenced, on Tuesday, April 16, Achraf R., known to media as Ould Lefchouch (‘spoiled child’), to the death penalty for the premeditated murder of Badr Bouljoihel, local media reported.

PUTRAJAYA: A former contractor's death penalty for murdering his three-year-old stepson has been commuted to 35 years in prison. The Court of Appeal also ordered Khairul Izani Khairuddin, 36, also known as "Boy Tiger", to be given 12 strokes of the cane. He was ordered to serve the prison sentence from the date of his arrest on Nov 12, 2018.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments centering on an Arizona death row prisoner that could set new precedent to determining ineffective assistance of counsel.  A Mohave County Superior Court jury convicted Danny Lee Jones for the 1992 murders of Robert Weaver and his daughter Tisha, as well as the attempted murder of Weaver’s grandmother. A judge sentenced Jones to death for the two murders.

BAGHDAD, April 15 (Reuters) - Iraqi lawmakers postponed voting on Monday on a bill that includes the death penalty or life in prison for same-sex relations - a measure that diplomats from Western countries said could have serious consequences for Iraq's political and economic ties if it goes through. Parliament was in session on Monday, with the bill - an amendment to an anti-prostitution law - second on its agenda.

In a rare joint statement, the district attorney and the defense agreed that prosecutors withheld evidence that could point to a Rio Grande Valley woman’s innocence in the death of her toddler. A district judge who previously presided over a woman’s capital murder case recommended last week that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturn Melissa Lucio's 2008 conviction after a district attorney’s office admitted that prosecutors withheld evidence from her defense.

The Osaka District Court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit by death row inmates that claimed same-day notifications of executions violate the Constitution — the first ruling of its kind. The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit against the government in hopes of sparking a wider discussion on the rights of death row prisoners. They also sought ¥22 million in compensation and plan to appeal to a higher court.

Programme on state television discloses new details and punishments from espionage cases as part of a campaign marking National Security Education Day Authorities in Beijing have revealed that a Chinese scientist who was convicted in 2015 of selling state secrets to foreign spy agencies was executed in 2016, one of several “shocking” spy cases.

THE HINDU BUREAU — Businessman and social activist Bobby Chemmanur, who has pledged to raise deliverance money to save Kozhikode native Abdul Rahim from death, continued his efforts on Thursday with a fund raising Yatra across Kerala. The Yatra reached Kochi on Thursday from Thiruvananthapuram, proceeded to Thrissur and will go on to other districts before April 16 to save the Kozhikode native, who was sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia.

The Constitutional Court announced that it is to hear a case on the constitutionality of the death penalty and has scheduled oral arguments on April 23, attracting widespread attention. However, instead of delving into the core debate of whether the death penalty contravenes the Constitution, legislators across party lines and the media have been preoccupied by arguing whether the grand justices should or should not make a ruling.

Simpson died after a battle with cancer, his family said. O.J. Simpson, the former football great who was accused of and ultimately acquitted of the brutal 1994 slayings of his ex-wife and her friend, has died, according to his family. He was 76. "On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer. He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren. During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace," a statement from his family said.

A Vietnamese real estate mogul has been handed the death penalty for her role in the biggest fraud case in the country's history. Vietnamese real estate tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced to death on Thursday as punishment for her role in a 304 trillion dong ($12.46 billion) financial fraud case, Vietnam's biggest on record.

Missouri executed four people in 2023. Amber McLaughlin, Michael Tisius, Johnny Johnson and Leonard Taylor, who maintained that he was innocent, all died by lethal injection. The state is one of five in the country that carried out executions last year. Once public spectacles, state-sponsored executions have become highly secretive affairs. Especially in Missouri. Witnesses on Tuesday night watched Brian Dorsey die from a lethal dose of pentobarbital at the state prison in Bonne Terre, about an hour south of St. Louis.

Brian Dorsey is a “rare case where those of us who sit in judgment of a man convicted of capital murder got it wrong,” according to a former judge who upheld his death sentence. Brian Dorsey's appointed trial lawyers were paid a flat fee of $12,000 to represent him. Against the advice of another lawyer, they advised Dorsey to plead guilty without a deal from prosecutors to take the death penalty off the table. 

Prison authorities of the Islamic Republic have executed another young man amid a significant rise in the use of the death penalty. The inmate convicted of murder was executed at Khorramabad Prison on April 5, according to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights Organization. The inmate, identified as 30-year-old Hassan-Ali Mirzania, was reportedly found guilty four years ago of fatally shooting two brothers with a hunting rifle.

ST. LOUIS -- Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Monday denied clemency for Brian Dorsey one day before the inmate's scheduled execution for killing his cousin and her husband nearly two decades ago. The governor's decision is "devastating," said Megan Crane, Dorsey's attorney, in an email. The clemency petition included requests from 72 current and former corrections officers who vouched for Dorsey's rehabilitation while behind bars, as well as support from a former Missouri Supreme Court justice and others.

The Last Week Tonight host looks into new ‘grim’ developments on the death penalty in the US, and identifies a secret supplier of lethal injections For the third time in Last Week Tonight’s 11 seasons, dating back to the second-ever episode, John Oliver looked at the death penalty in the US on Sunday evening. The host continued his long-running stance that it’s morally wrong, there is no humane way to do it and “any discussion of one is akin to coming up with the best way to fuck your mom, which is to say, there’s simply no right way to do that”.

Article 286 of the Criminal Code should be amended to impose the death penalty or life imprisonment on those guilty of child abuse leading to death, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus has proposed. Under the current law, “a person who maltreats a minor under the age of 18, or impairs the mental or physical health or development thereof by other means” would be imprisoned for up to five years, while offenses that lead to the death of a minor could result in imprisonment for up to 10 years.

Karen Conti was a fledgling lawyer in the early 1990s when she was asked to defend John Wayne Gacy, but she wanted "to look evil in the eye," so she took the case. As a fierce opponent of the death penalty, Conti became the only female lawyer on his death row defense team, which led to hours of talks with the "Killer Clown."

In 2021, China lowered its age of criminal responsibility from 14 to 12 for "special cases" such as inflicting death by "extremely cruel means". China will put three minors on trial for allegedly murdering another child, a provincial prosecutor said Monday, in a case that has shocked the nation and sparked public debate over the treatment of juvenile offenders.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Missouri’s execution protocol allows for “surgery without anesthesia” if the typical process of finding a suitable vein to inject the lethal drug doesn’t work, lawyers for a death row inmate say in an appeal aimed at sparing his life. Brian Dorsey, 52, is scheduled for execution Tuesday for killing his cousin and her husband at their central Missouri home in 2006. His attorneys are seeking clemency from Gov. Mike Parson and have several appeals pending.

Across the country, few people have been on death row longer than Karu Gene White. White was 20 years old when he was convicted of taking part in the brutal murders of three elderly Breathitt County shopkeepers in February 1979. The following year, he was sentenced to death by execution. Today, nearly 44 years later, White is still languishing on death row at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Lyon County — awaiting an execution that may never come. And he’s not the only one.