Death Penalty News

As the Church's liturgical readings recall Jesus’ encounter with the woman caught in adultery, the Director of the US-based Catholic Mobilizing Network explores the Lord’s rejection of capital punishment. This Sunday’s Gospel reading for Year C describes the event traditionally called the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). My friends have helped to give it new relevance for me this year. In our work at Catholic Mobilizing Network, we strive to end the death penalty, advance justice, and begin healing.

As Louisiana prepared its first execution in 15 years, a team of lawyers from Loyola Law were working to save Jessie Hoffman’s life. “I was a young lawyer three years out of law school, and Jessie was almost finished with his appeals at that time, and my boss told me we needed to file something for Jessie because he’s in danger of being executed,” Kappel said. Kappel and her boss came up with a civil lawsuit to file that said since they wouldn’t give him a protocol for his execution, he was being deprived of due process, and the lawsuit was in the legal process for the next 10 years.

In a rare ruling with broad implications for jury deliberations and the death penalty in California, the California Supreme Court on April 3, 2025, reversed the murder convictions and death sentence of Timothy Joseph McGhee, a reputed gang leader convicted of multiple homicides and attempted murders in Los Angeles. Writing for a unanimous court in People v. McGhee (S169750), Justice Goodwin Liu found that the trial court had committed a “clear abuse of discretion” by improperly removing a dissenting juror during guilt-phase deliberations, undermining the defendant’s constitutional right to a unanimous jury.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); April 1, 2025: Mahnaz Kakaei and Ali Soufian, a woman and man on death row for murder and drug-related charges, were executed in Isfahan Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a woman and a man were hanged in Isfahan (Dastgerd) Central prison on 29 March. The woman’s identity has been established as 24-year-old Mahnaz Kakayi who was arrested for the murder of her fiancé four years and seven months ago and sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) by the Criminal Court.

Bruce Ward, a convicted murderer who was the longest-serving inmate on Arkansas’ death row, has died, the state Department of Corrections said. He was 68.  The state Department of Corrections said Ward was pronounced dead Tuesday from natural causes. He had been held on death row at the Varner SuperMax unit in Gould, located 67 miles (108 kilometers) south of Little Rock.  Citing confidentiality, the department declined to provide any further details on Ward’s health or the circumstances surrounding his death. 

The United Arab Emirates sentenced to death 3 Uzbek nationals who killed Chabad Rabbi Zvi Kogan last November.  The 3 are suspected of having carried out the killing at the behest of Iran.  The murderers are believed to have tracked the rabbi, monitored his daily activities, and ultimately kidnapped and killed him.  Following the abduction, Kogan’s car was discovered with evidence of violence and blood. 

Convict’s relatives continue to threaten slain man’s family A judge in Pakistan sentenced to death a Muslim who murdered a 20-year-old Christian in the presence of his family, sources said.  Saima Riyasat, additional sessions judge of Pasrur, Sialkot District, handed the country’s maximum punishment for murder to Muhammad Zubair for killing Farhan Ul Qamar on Nov. 9, 2023, said Christian attorney Lazar Allah Rakha. The court also imposed a fine of 500,000 Pakistani Rupees ($1,785 USD), he said. 

The direction came as the bench of Justice Gurvinder Singh Gill and Justice Jasjit Singh Bedi held that the case did not fall within the ‘rarest of rare’ category warranting capital punishment A father, who raped and murdered his six-year-old daughter, has escaped the gallows after the Punjab and Haryana High Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment for the “remainder of his natural life” without remissions. The direction came as the bench of Justice Gurvinder Singh Gill and Justice Jasjit Singh Bedi held that the case did not fall within the ‘rarest of rare’ category warranting capital punishment.

“Individuals increasingly find themselves in cages unfit for lab mice and subjected to conditions with less scrutiny than that of invertebrate species kept in aquariums.” One hundred and thirty-five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged the devastating effects of solitary confinement. In an 1890 ruling declaring that Colorado had improperly subjected a man named James Medley to isolation, the court noted the practice had deleterious effects on the human psyche, including turning people “violently insane.” The court noted that others committed suicide, while “those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases did not recover sufficient mental activity.” 

An inmate who was transferred to Oklahoma last month to face the death penalty now has an execution date. George John Hanson, also known as John Fitzgerald Hanson, is scheduled to die on June 12 for the 1999 murder of 77-year-old Mary Bowles.  The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday set the execution date. The state’s Pardon and Parole Board has a tentative date of May 7 for Hanson’s clemency hearing, executive director Tom Bates said.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday that she has directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, following through on the president’s campaign promise to vigorously pursue capital punishment. It is the first time the Justice Department has sought to bring the death penalty since President Donald Trump returned to office in January with a vow to resume federal executions. Bondi’s decision to do so in the high-profile case against Mangione, who has drawn a following of supporters upset with the health care industry, underscores the attorney general’s commitment to carrying out the president’s push for new death penalty cases.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); March 30, 2025: Yasser Roshani, man on death row for murder, was executed in Arak Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Arak Central Prison on 29 March. His identity has been established as Yasser Roshani from Arak. He was arrested for murder four years ago and sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) by the Criminal Court.

Florida's death penalty system has faced numerous criticisms and controversies over the years - from execution methods to the treatment of Death Row inmates The Sunshine State remains steadfast in its enforcement of capital punishment, upholding a complex system that has developed since its reinstatement in 1976. Florida's contemporary death penalty era kicked off in 1972 following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Furman v. Georgia , which temporarily put a stop to executions across the country. Swiftly amending its laws, Florida saw the Supreme Court affirm the constitutionality of the death penalty in 1976's Gregg v. Georgia case.

Rafael Caro Quintero, extradited from Mexico in 2022, appeared in Brooklyn court as feds weigh capital charges for the torture and murder of Agent Enrique Camarena NEW YORK — The death penalty is on the table for notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, the so-called “narco of narcos” who orchestrated the torture and murder of a DEA agent in 1985, according to federal prosecutors. “It is a possibility. The decision has not yet been made, but it is going through the process,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Saritha Komatireddy said in Brooklyn Federal Court Wednesday.

In 90% of of all death penalty sentences in 2024, trial courts imposed sentences in the absence of adequate information about the accused, finds a recent report Bengaluru: Following the uproar and the widespread protests after the August 2024 rape and murder of a medical professional in Kolkata’s RG Kar hospital, there were demands for death penalty for the accused. The state government passed the Aparajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2024 (awaiting presidential assent) which included mandatory death sentence for rape which results in death of the victim or if the victim is left in a vegetative state, despite such a mandatory sentence being unconstitutional.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); March 27, 2025: Ahmad Yarmohammadi, man on death row for murder, was executed in Doroud Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Doroud Prison on 12 March. His identity has been established as Ahmad Yarmohammadi from Doroud. He was arrested for murder four years ago and sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) by the Criminal Court.

Columbia, S.C. — A South Carolina death row inmate on Friday chose execution by firing squad, just five weeks after the state carried out its first death by bullets. Mikal Mahdi, who pleaded guilty to murder for killing a police officer in 2004, is scheduled to be executed April 11. Mahdi, 41, had the choice of dying by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair. He will be the first inmate to be executed in the state since Brad Sigmon chose to be shot to death on March 7. A doctor pronounced Sigmon dead less than three minutes after three bullets tore into his heart.

Widely supported in the Idaho Legislature, the bill is likely to face a constitutional challenge, lawmakers acknowledge. But they are hopeful law will prevail. Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed into law a bill to make people who sexually abuse young children in Idaho eligible for the death penalty.  House Bill 380 will allow the death penalty in a new criminal charge the bill creates: aggravated lewd conduct with children age 12 and younger. The bill also would add mandatory minimum prison sentences for cases of aggravated lewd conduct with minors that don’t meet the bill’s proposed criteria for death penalty eligibility. The new crime would only apply to abuse of children age 16 and below. 

Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite criticism over how it is carried out. Tokyo: Capital punishment in Japan is under scrutiny again after the world's longest-serving death row prisoner, Iwao Hakamada, was awarded $1.4 million in compensation this week following his acquittal last year in a retrial. Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite international criticism over how it is carried out.