Roy Cooper’s historic clemency action comes a week after Biden’s resentencings shielded dozens from execution
The governor of North Carolina has granted commutations to 15 people on death row on his final day in office, changing their sentences to life without the possibility of parole.
Roy Cooper, a Democrat, announced his clemency action on New Year’s Eve, prompting praise from opponents of capital punishment, who have advocated for mass commutations to thwart executions.
Continue reading...Minister says request regarding welder arrested in 2005 on drugs charges will be discussed in January amid spate of transfer of high-profile detainees
Indonesia has received an official request from France to transfer a French death row inmate imprisoned on drugs charges since 2005, a senior Indonesian minister said on Saturday.
“We have received a formal letter requesting the transfer of Serge Atlaoui on 19 December 2024. The letter was sent on behalf of the French minister of justice,” senior Indonesian law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra told Agence France-Presse.
Continue reading...Fan Weiqiu, angry at his divorce settlement, caused ‘great social harm’ when he drove into people as they exercised in the city of Zhuhai, court says
A court in China has sentenced a man to death for killing 35 people last month by driving into a crowd, in an attack that raised national concern about mass killings.
Fan Weiqiu was venting his anger because he was unhappy with his divorce settlement, the court in the southern city of Zhuhai said in handing down the sentence on Friday. The victims were exercising at a sports centre at the time of the attack. Fan pleaded guilty to endangering public safety by dangerous means, a court statement said.
Continue reading...On Truth Social, president-elect also lashes out at Chinese troops in Panama Canal and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau
Donald Trump has told 37 people on death row who had their sentences commuted by Joe Biden to “go to hell” in a lacerating Christmas Day social media post.
The president-elect – long a vocal advocate of capital punishment – lashed out at Biden’s decision on his Truth Social platform, after wishing a merry Christmas to political opponents he addressed as “Radical Left Lunatics”.
Continue reading...Christopher Collings was convicted of sexually assaulting nine-year-old in 2007 and leaving her body in sinkhole
Missouri’s governor on Monday denied clemency for Christopher Collings, a death row prisoner facing execution for sexually assaulting and killing a nine-year-old girl and leaving her body in a sinkhole.
Collings, 49, is scheduled to receive a single injection of pentobarbital at 6pm CT on Tuesday at the state prison in Bonne Terre, Missouri, for the 2007 killing of fourth-grader Rowan Ford. It would be the 23rd execution in the US this year and the fourth in Missouri.
Continue reading...Carey Dale Grayson was killed on Thursday for 1994 murder by technique that previously caused visible signs of distress
Alabama carried out its third execution this year using the controversial new method of nitrogen gas, a technique that in previous state killings caused visible signs of distress.
Carey Dale Grayson was put to death on Thursday evening for the 1994 murder of a hitchhiker. The prisoner had a mask strapped to his face through which nitrogen was pumped, causing fatal oxygen deprivation.
Continue reading...Members of Congress call on president to pardon or commute sentences before he leaves White House
More than 60 members of Congress have written to Joe Biden calling on him to use his presidential clemency powers to reunite families, address unfair sentencing policies, and begin to tackle the scourge of mass incarceration, which they said was eroding “the soul of America”.
Biden has 61 days left before he leaves the White House in which he could pardon or commute the sentences of incarcerated Americans. The letter, signed by a number of prominent Democratic politicians and spearheaded by the progressive politician Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, urges Biden to act while he still can.
Continue reading...Military regime considering move after capital punishment abolished in west African country in 2018
Burkina Faso’s military regime wants to reinstate the death penalty after the west African country abolished it in 2018, a government source told Agence France-Presse on Saturday.
The last execution in Burkina Faso was carried out on 19 September 1988, according to Amnesty International. The nation’s final executions killed four leaders accused of an attempted coup d’état to depose the president, Blaise Compaoré, the defence minister, Jean-Baptiste Boukary Lingani, the minister of economic promotion, Henri Zongo, and two unidentified men.
Reintroducing capital punishment to the penal code “is being considered”, the source said. “It’s up to the government to discuss it, then make the proposal to the Transitional Legislative Assembly for adoption.”
Justice minister Rodrigue Bayala said on Friday, after parliament passed a bill introducing community service, that “the issue of the death penalty, which is being discussed, will be implemented in the draft criminal code”.
Bayala also said there could be further amendments to the criminal code “to follow the vision and the guidelines given by the head of state, Capt Ibrahim Traoré”, who seized power in a September 2022 coup.
In May this year, Burkina Faso’s military government announced it would extend junta rule for another five years despite Traoré, the country’s ruler, pledging that he would restore the civilian government by 1 July.
Instead, Traoré’s government passed a bill that month that included plans to ban homosexuality.
Amnesty International has found the use of the death penalty is rising in Africa, “recorded executions more than tripled and recorded death sentences increased significantly by 66%”, it said in October.
Conversely, Amnesty said: “Twenty-four countries across sub-Saharan Africa have abolished the death penalty for all crimes while two additional countries have abolished it for ordinary crimes only.”
“Kenya and Zimbabwe currently have bills tabled to abolish the death penalty for all crimes, while Gambia … has commenced a constitutional amendment process that will … effectively abolish the death penalty,” it said.
Top Iranian officials previously referred to an execution when reacting to Jamshid Sharmahd’s death on 28 October
Iran has claimed that an Iranian-German duel national who had been sentenced to death died last week before his execution could be carried out.
“Jamshid Sharmahd was sentenced to death, his execution was imminent, but he died before it could be carried out,” the judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir told reporters without elaborating. It is understood Tehran claims he suffered a stroke.
Continue reading...Moore, 59, was killed on Friday evening as the state pursues a rapid spree of killings
South Carolina has executed a man on death row, despite widespread calls for his life to be spared, including from the judge who originally condemned him to death.
Richard Moore, 59, was killed by lethal injection on Friday evening, minutes after the state’s Republican governor, Henry McMaster, announced he would not be granting him clemency.
Continue reading...Lawmakers unhappy with handling of Robert Roberson case as doubts grow over science used to secure conviction
Republican lawmakers in Texas expressed alarm on Monday at the apparent willingness of state officials to execute a potentially innocent man on the basis of junk science, as the political fallout of the 11th-hour reprieve of Robert Roberson continued to roil the state.
Several Republican members of the state’s House committee on criminal jurisprudence lined up to air their discontent with the handling of the case of Roberson, 57, who was convicted of killing his two-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis in 2002 by violently shaking her.
Continue reading...Emmanuel Littlejohn will be executed for role in 1992 shooting, which would be state’s third execution this year
A man in Oklahoma is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Thursday morning, despite conflicting evidence regarding his guilt.
Emmanuel Littlejohn, 52, will be executed for his role in the 1992 shooting death of a convenience store owner during a robbery in Oklahoma City. If executed, Littlejohn will be the third inmate put to death by the state this year.
Continue reading...Alan Miller, 59, second person in US to be executed via controversial technique, shook and trembled on gurney
Alabama has carried out the second execution in the US using the controversial method of nitrogen gas, an experimental technique for humans that veterinarians have deemed unacceptable in the US and Europe for the euthanasia of most animals.
Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was pronounced dead at 6.38pm local time at a south Alabama prison.
Continue reading...Iwao Hakamada found not guilty of 1966 murder of his boss and his family after a retrial was ordered a decade ago
A Japanese man who spent almost half a century on death row has been found not guilty of multiple murders, in a closely watched trial that has raised questions about Japan’s use of the death penalty.
Iwao Hakamada, 88, was sentenced to hang in 1968 after being found guilty of murdering his boss, his wife and their two teenage children, and setting fire to their home two years earlier.
Continue reading...Williams long maintained his innocence and the killing was opposed by victim’s family, jurors and office that tried him
Missouri executed a man on death row on Tuesday, despite objections from prosecutors who sought to have his conviction overturned and have supported his claims of innocence.
Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams, 55, was killed by lethal injection, ending a legal battle that has sparked widespread outrage as the office that originally tried the case suggested he was wrongfully convicted.
Continue reading...Young Americans face death penalty for ‘amateurish’ assault in Congo that was led by one of their fathers
The family of a Utah student sentenced to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo for his alleged role in a failed coup d’etat in which his father was killed fears he and two other Americans could be executed within days without US government intervention.
Marcel Malanga, 22, was one of dozens convicted and sentenced at a military tribunal in Kinshasa last week, after the attempted overthrow of the Congolese government in May. The “amateurish” assault, which left six dead, was led by his father, Christian Malanga, a former DRC opposition leader, army captain and self-styled warlord.
Continue reading...After July ruling that state’s death penalty is legal, a man on death row has a week to decide how he will be executed
A man on death row in South Carolina has until 6 September to decide how he would prefer to be executed by the state.
South Carolina’s prisons director has declared the state’s supply of a lethal injection drug acceptable and said its electric chair was tested two months ago and its firing squad has the ammunition and training to carry out its first execution next month in more than 13 years, if needed.
Continue reading...Defense attorneys said the use of ketamine, fentanyl and potassium chloride could cause ‘excruciating suffering’
Utah officials said on Saturday that they are scrapping plans to use an untested lethal drug combination in next month’s planned execution of a man in a 1998 murder case. They will instead seek out a drug that’s been used previously in executions in numerous states.
Defense attorneys for Taberon Dave Honie, 49, had sued in state court to stop the use of the drug combination, saying it could cause the defendant “excruciating suffering”.
Continue reading...Secretive trial of Rico Krieger, 30, may be linked to Belarusian volunteer unit fighting alongside Ukraine against Russia
A German national has been sentenced to death in Belarus, the German foreign ministry has said, hours after a Belarusian human rights group said a German combat medic had been sentenced to death by firing squad.
The German ministry did not name its national but the Viasna Human Rights Centre said earlier on Friday that Rico Krieger, 30, had been convicted under six articles of Belarus’s criminal code in a trial held at the end of June. It said he had been in custody since November.
Continue reading...Iwao Hakamada, 88, who spent longer than anyone in the world awaiting execution, awaits murder retrial verdict
In the early hours of 30 June 1966 a fire swept through the home of the managing director of a miso maker in Shizuoka, central Japan. After the fire was put out, police found the bodies of the executive, his wife, and their two teenage children. They had all been stabbed to death.
Iwao Hakamada, who had worked for the firm as a live-in employee, was arrested on suspicion of murdering the family, setting fire to their home and stealing 200,000 yen (£973) in cash. Two years later he was found guilty of murder and arson and sentenced to hang. He maintained innocence throughout his 45 years awaiting execution – the longest any prisoner worldwide has spent on death row.
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