More than two decades ago, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision prohibiting the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. The case, Atkins v. Virginia, was no sidebar in the world of capital punishment. Large numbers of those who commit capital crimes suffer from an intellectual disability. Not only that, even after Atkins, researchers found that "the vast majority of executed offenders possess significant functional deficits that rival-and perhaps outpace-those associated with intellectual impairment."
A court in Nigeria on Thursday convicted Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of a separatist group, on charges related to terrorism. Kanu founded the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) separatist group that called for independence from Nigeria. "His intention was quite clear as he believed in violence. These threats of violence were nothing but terrorist acts," judge James Omotosho said at the Federal High Court in Abuja. The conviction came after a long-running trial, with the case going back to comments made in 2015.
A man found guilty in the 1979 rape and murder of a six-year-old girl was executed in Florida on Thursday. Bryan Frederick Jennings was pronounced dead at 6.20pm local time after being administered a three-drug lethal injection. Jennings was sentenced to death for the killing of Rebecca Kunash, whom he drowned in a canal, according to reports. Jennings said no after being asked whether he had a final statement. Kunash's relatives did not comment publicly following Jennings' execution. The execution took place without incident.
According to the draft text, the death penalty would apply to individuals who kill Israelis out of racist motives and with the aim of harming the State of Israel and the revival of the Jewish people in its land, The Times of Israel reported. Critics said the wording means that in practice, the death penalty would apply almost exclusively to Arabs who kill Jews, not to Jewish hardliners who carry out attacks on Palestinians. Attempts to introduce similar legislation have failed in the past.
When Pamela Price was sworn in as Alameda County District Attorney in 2023, she promised a reckoning with the criminal legal system's injustices, including police and prosecutorial misconduct. And she brought a new philosophy to the DA's office, focusing on rehabilitation instead of punishment for youth, and reducing the use of prosecutorial tools like enhancements additional charges that add time to defendants' sentences.
In a court filing, attorneys for Mangione said the death penalty must be dismissed because it does not meet the legal threshold. Mangione's legal team is also arguing that evidence, including a gun and ammunition, allegedly found in a backpack Mangione was carrying when he was arrested at a Pennsylvania McDonald's should be suppressed at trial because the search occurred without a warrant. They further claim that Mangione, 27, was not read his rights before he was questioned by law enforcement officers.
Lawyers for Luigi Mangione asked a New York federal judge Saturday to dismiss some criminal charges, including the only count for which he could face the death penalty, from a federal indictment brought against him in the December assassination of UnitedHealthcare's chief executive. In papers filed in Manhattan federal court, the lawyers said prosecutors should also be prevented from using at trial his statements to law enforcement officers and his backpack where a gun and ammunition were found.
But prosecutors argued that her head trauma must have been caused by shaken baby syndrome, a diagnosis popularised in the late 1990s as evidence of physical abuse in infants and toddlers. But that diagnosis has been increasingly rejected, as doctors and medical researchers point out that the symptoms of shaken baby syndrome namely, bleeding or swelling in the eyes or brain can be caused by other conditions. Roberson's defence team has argued that Nikki suffered from chronic pneumonia in the lead-up to her death, and the medications she was given, including codeine, contributed to her death.
More than 50 years ago, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall observed that the key issue in understanding public attitudes toward the death penalty is "not whether a substantial proportion of American citizens would today, if polled, opine that capital punishment is barbarously cruel, but whether they would find it to be so in the light of all information presently available." This information, Marshall predicted, "would surely convince average citizens that the death penalty was unwise."
Ben Chouchane, who was arrested in January 2024, had been sentenced to death by a court in Nabeul, east of Tunis, on Wednesday, Bouthelja told the AFP news agency. His client had been found guilty of insulting the president, the minister of justice and the judiciary, spreading false news and some of his social media posts were also deemed to be incitement, Bouthelja added.
In January 2025, the execution of inmate Huang Lin-kai reignited Taiwan's death penalty debate, with activists saying authorities acted in disregard of the law. The execution, the island's first in five years, came just months after Taiwan's Constitutional Court issued a landmark ruling narrowing the scope of capital punishment and requiring stricter safeguards for its application. At the time, some observers thought the ruling meant Taiwan was edging toward "de facto abolition" of the death penalty.
Someone who says, I'm against abortion, but says, I'm in favor of the death penalty, is not really pro-life. Someone who says that I'm against abortion, but, I'm in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the United States, I don't know if that's pro-life. So, they're very complex issues. I don't know if anyone has all the truth on them; but I would ask, first and foremost, that there be greater respect for one another and that we search together,
The 22-year-old man charged with killing Charlie Kirk will have a court hearing on Monday where he and his newly appointed legal counsel will decide whether they want a preliminary hearing where the judge will determine if there is enough evidence against him to go forward with a trial. Prosecutors have charged Tyler Robinson with aggravated murder and plan to seek the death penalty.
Multiple Department of Justice employees may have violated Luigi Mangione's right to a fair trial through public comments and social media posts, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday and it could end up swaying the judge to grant a defense motion to take the death penalty off the table. Mangione, 27, is currently in a federal prison in Brooklyn, charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
The people of North Korea endure the harshest repression in the world, with the death penalty reportedly used for sharing foreign media, including popular South Korean television dramas, according to a new report from the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR). The 14-page document detailed how ordinary North Korean people's lives have become significantly more difficult in the last decade. The report was based on interviews with around 300 people who have managed to leave North Korea,
Less than three months ago, Victor Jones was among more than 900 men who received apologies from Florida officials and checks for $21,000 as reparations for the horrific abuse they endured as children at state-run reform schools. On Sept. 30, Jones is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection for the 1990 murders of a couple in Miami-Dade County. He would be the third former student at the notorious reform schools to be executed in little more than a year.
September is an important month for Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Key scheduling and motion decisions will set the stage for all that comes next, both in New York state court, where Mangione, 27, is charged with murder as an act of terrorism, punishable by life in prison, and in federal court, where prosecutors seek the death penalty.
Rezgar Beigzadeh Babamiri, a father of three, volunteered to carry medical supplies to secret clinics treating injured demonstrators during protests in Iran, seeing it as a moral obligation.
