Death Penalty News

HRANA News Agency – Today, April 30, Mizan, the Judiciary’s media center, announced the execution of Mohsen Langarneshin (Langar-Neshin), a prisoner accused of espionage and collaboration with hostile governments. His mother had released a video the previous day stating that she had her final visit with him at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj. Mizan claimed that Mr. Langarneshin had been arrested and tried on charges of moharebeh (enmity against God) and corruption on earth due to alleged intelligence cooperation and espionage in favor of the “Zionist regime.” 

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); April 29, 2025: Abolfazl Kianpour, a man on death row for murder, was executed in Ahvaz Sepidar Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Ahvaz Sepidar Prison, Khuzestan province on 28 April 2025. His identity has been established as Abolfazl Kianpour from Masjed Suleiman. He was arrested three years ago and sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder. At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); April 29, 2025: Two unidentified women and three Baluch men named Mohammadreza Damideh, Amirahmad Sanayi (Mazarzehi) and Sajad Barahouyi were executed for drug-related and murder charges in Mashhad Central Prison on 8 April. Five political prisoners were previously reported to have been executed, bringing the total number executed at the prison to ten that day. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, two women and three men were hanged in Mashhad (Vakil Abad) Central Prison on 8 April 2025. Two of the men and the two women were sentenced to death on drug-related charges. The two women’s identities have not been established at the time of writing. The two men have been identified as 32-year-old Mohammadreza Damideh and Amirahmad Sanayi, two Baluch minorities.

On April 29, 2025, Iran witnessed a fresh wave of nationwide protests as citizens from diverse sectors and regions rallied against what they described as systemic injustice, economic mismanagement, and government repression. From Khuzestan to Tehran, Zanjan to Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, demonstrators demanded urgent changes, accountability, and basic rights. In Tehran, patients suffering from immune deficiency disorders staged a protest in front of the Food and Drug Organization, citing shortages and the high cost of IVIG, a critical medication. Despite repeated demonstrations, the crisis persists, and protesters say government pledges have gone unfulfilled.

Jeffrey Hutchinson is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Florida on May 1, 2025, despite a long­stand­ing men­tal ill­ness and his attorney’s claim that he is men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent.  On April 24, 2025, attor­neys for the Gulf War vet­er­an filed a motion in Bradford County Circuit Court seek­ing a stay of his sched­uled exe­cu­tion and request­ing an evi­den­tiary hear­ing to assess their client’s com­pe­ten­cy. Mr. Hutchinson has suf­fered from a delu­sion­al dis­or­der for decades, with a per­sis­tent delu­sion that his exe­cu­tion is meant to silence his expo­sure of gov­ern­ment secrets, includ­ing the iden­ti­ty of the actu­al per­pe­tra­tors in his case. 

Justice Department targets Luigi Mangione after Trump ends Biden's moratorium on capital punishment A former federal prosecutor said the Trump administration is using the Luigi Mangione case to "send a message" in the first 100 days through its potential use of the death penalty. Mangione pleaded not guilty to federal charges of stalking, murder through a firearm, and other firearms offenses during an arraignment hearing on Friday. He's accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December outside a Hilton hotel where an annual shareholder meeting was scheduled to take place.

Idaho quadruple murder suspect's claims about overwhelming evidence preparation 'ring hollow,' judge rules A judge in Idaho denied a motion from Bryan Kohberger's defense team asking to remove the death penalty as a potential punishment if he's found guilty. Kohberger is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of four students at the University of Idaho, including Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; and Ethan Chapin, 20. The former student at the University of Washington was also charged with one felony count of burglary.

A legislative committee on Tuesday is scheduled to debate a bill that would allow people sentenced to death in North Carolina to choose between three options for their execution: lethal injection, electrocution, or firing squad. Capital punishment could soon look a lot different in North Carolina. A House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday plans to discuss House Bill 270, which would allow criminals sentenced to death in North Carolina to choose lethal injection, electrocution, or firing squad for their execution.

Pannir Selvam Pranthaman’s appeal hearing is set for May 7. He received a last-minute stay of execution on February 19, when the Court of Appeal allowed him to file a review of his case. If his appeal is denied, Pannir could once again face imminent execution. This is the 3rd time he has been at risk.  Pannir, a Malaysian national, was convicted in 2017 of importing 51.84 grams of heroin into Singapore. The trial judge ruled that Pannir only transported the drugs. However, because the prosecution did not issue a certificate of substantive assistance, the court sentenced him to the mandatory death penalty.  Meanwhile, executions in Singapore have continued at an alarming pace. Since October 2024, authorities have hanged 12 men.

NBC News reported on Sunday that several district attorneys are considering, or have considered, state charges against some of the 37 men whose sentences Biden commuted. President Donald Trump seems to be making progress on his promise to “vigorously pursue” the death penalty after former President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 men on federal death row in December. NBC News reported  on Sunday that several district attorneys are considering, or have considered, state charges against some of the men after Trump issued an executive order earlier this year asking them to evaluate the situation of the men and pursue the death penalty in general. Charges against at least one have been successful so far, according to the report.

Ron McAndrew was once the head of Florida's execution programme but one death made him regret everything A man that was once the head of Florida's execution programme recalled the moment where he realised the job wasn't for him, as he admitted he needed therapy to come to terms with what he'd seen. Ron McAndrew, now 88, didn't aspire to be a correctional officer in any form, but after being hired in a Miami prison in 1979, he climbed up the ladder over the next decade and became a warden. In what he now calls a 'wonderful career', he recalled moving to Florida State Prison, famous for holding the US state's death row inmates and for being the site where serial killer Ted Bundy was electrocuted to death.

Following a Verite News and ProPublica investigation, a district judge vacated the death sentence of Jimmie Duncan, whose 1998 murder conviction was based on allegedly fabricated bite mark analysis. It remains unclear if Duncan will walk free. A Louisiana judge this week set aside the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence of Jimmie Chris Duncan, whose 1998 conviction for killing his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter was based in part on bite mark evidence that experts now say is junk science . The decision comes after a Verite News and ProPublica investigation in March examined the questions surrounding Duncan’s conviction as Gov. Jeff Landry, a staunch death penalty advocate, made moves to expedite executions after a 15-year pause.

One fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of fair­ness upon which our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem relies is the notion that pros­e­cu­tors must dis­close excul­pa­to­ry, mate­r­i­al evi­dence favor­able to defen­dants. This Constitutional oblig­a­tion, estab­lished in Brady v. Maryland (1963), rep­re­sents a crit­i­cal safe­guard against wrong­ful con­vic­tions. Nevertheless, Brady vio­la­tions remain dis­turbing­ly com­mon, with dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for defen­dants who may spend years or decades wrong­ly impris­oned. The Death Penalty Information Center has iden­ti­fied more than 200 death-sen­tenced indi­vid­u­als in the mod­ern death penal­ty era whose con­vic­tions or sen­tences were over­turned due to pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct involv­ing a Brady violation.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); April 25, 2025: Akbar Sheikhi, a man on death row for drug-related offences, was executed in Hamedan Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Hamedan Central Prison on 23 April 2025. His identity has been established as 25-year-old Akbar Sheikhi from Hamedan. He was arrested five years ago and sentenced to death on drug-related charges. At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

James Osgood has been executed by the State of Alabama. Read an eyewitness account. There were no protestors today on the side of Highway 21 in Atmore, Alabama, outside Holman Correctional Facility where the state would soon begin its execution of James Osgood. Instead, under a cloudy spring sky, a few guard trucks were parked at the prison’s first gate, lonely in the grassy plains. Before, at the state’s previous killings, protestors have often flanked the roadside nearest those trucks, their dissenting bodies one of the few signals in the landscape of the death about to occur inside the prison’s gates.

NEW YORK, April 24 (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors formally told a court on Thursday that they plan to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, who is accused of murdering a UnitedHealth Group (UNH.N), opens new tab executive in New York last year. Mangione, 26, is due to appear in Manhattan federal court for an arraignment on Friday. He has pleaded not guilty to a separate New York state indictment he faces over the murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth's insurance division. While public officials condemned the killing, some Americans have cheered Mangione, saying he drew attention to steep U.S. healthcare costs and the power of health insurers to refuse payment for some treatments.

Alabama executes man who volunteered to die  Alabama executed an inmate Thursday evening after he volunteered to die for his crime – the 2010 slaying and rape of a Chilton County woman. In his last words, he apologized for the slaying.  James Osgood was executed at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, just miles from the Florida state line. He was put to death using the state’s 3-drug lethal injection method, after he declined to choose death by nitrogen gas when Alabama allowed that swap in 2018. 

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); April 23, 2025: Mehdi Fathollahpour, a man on death row for drug-related offences, was executed in Rasht Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Rasht (Lakan) Central Prison on 21 April 2025. His identity has been established as 30-year-old Mehdi Fathollahpour from Abyek in Qazvin. He was arrested three years ago and sentenced to death on drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Court.

The Iranian regime’s judiciary has rejected a final appeal from Behrouz Ehsani Eslamloo, a 70-year-old political prisoner sentenced to death, bringing him perilously close to execution. The decision, confirmed this week, comes amid international outcry and growing evidence of severe due process violations in Iran’s revolutionary courts. Ehsani was arrested in November 2022 at the height of the nationwide uprising and held in Tehran’s Evin Prison under the control of the Ministry of Intelligence. After enduring three and a half months of torture, extended solitary confinement, and coerced interrogations, he was transferred to Ghezel Hesar Prison in January 2025, where he remains under constant threat of execution.

“Dad is here. He found the salon.” Those words, spoken frantically by 17-year-old Fatemeh Soltani to her mother over the phone at 9 AM on April 16, would be among the last she ever uttered. Within minutes, the streets of Islamshahr in Tehran would become the stage for an unthinkable act of violence – a father murdering his own daughter in broad daylight. Amir Mohammad Soltani raced through the city streets on his motorcycle after overhearing his sister’s desperate call, but he arrived too late.

Moises Sandoval Mendoza receives lethal injection in Huntsville for death of 20-year-old Rachelle O’Neil Tolleson  A Texas man convicted of fatally strangling and stabbing a young mother more than 20 years ago was executed on Wednesday evening.  Moises Sandoval Mendoza received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville and was pronounced dead at 6.40pm, authorities said. He was condemned for the March 2004 killing of 20-year-old Rachelle O’Neil Tolleson. 

A federal judge has denied another motion from the defense of Payton Gendron, the man who killed 10 Black people in a mass shooting at a Buffalo Tops supermarket in May 2022, to allow federal prosecutors to continue seeking the death penalty. An 18-year-old Payton Gendron wearing military gear and livestreaming with a helmet camera opened fire with a rifle at a supermarket in Buffalo, killing 10 people and wounding three others in what authorities described as “racially motivated violent extremism.” The gunman wore body armor and military-style clothing during the attack on mostly Black shoppers and workers at Tops Friendly Markets. For at least two minutes, he broadcast the shooting live on the streaming platform Twitch before the service ended his transmission.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and sev­er­al oth­er orga­ni­za­tions rep­re­sent­ing a group of for­mer­ly fed­er­al­ly death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers filed a fed­er­al law­suit on April 16, 2025 seek­ing to pre­vent their trans­fer to the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, known as "ADX.”  The trans­fers were threat­ened by the Department of Justice in response to President Donald Trump’s January 20th Executive Order 14164, which direct­ed Attorney General Pam Bondi to "ensure” that the pris­on­ers who received com­mu­ta­tions of their death sen­tences in the wan­ing days of the Biden Administration​ “are impris­oned in con­di­tions con­sis­tent with the mon­stros­i­ty of their crimes and the threats they pose.” 

Advocates for abolishing the death penalty say it's time for Ohio legislators to catch up with public opinion and outlaw the practice once and for all.  State of play: No one has been executed in Ohio since 2018. Gov. Mike DeWine has postponed executions, saying the state is unable to secure the required drugs for lethal injection.  There are 114 people currently on Ohio's death row, with the next execution scheduled for October. Driving the news: Attorney General Dave Yost's recent Capital Crimes Report characterized Ohio's capital punishment system as a "ponderous machine that burns enormous amounts of effort, time and money, all to no purpose." 

Osgood has long admitted to the murder, agrees that he deserves the death penalty and has stopped all appeals  An Alabama man set to be executed Thursday for the brutal rape and murder of his girlfriend's cousin has dropped all his appeals, fired his attorney and says he's ready to die for what he did.  James Osgood and his girlfriend were convicted of the 2010 murder of Tracy Lynn Brown after attacking and raping her in what one prosecutor said was one of the grizzliest crimes he'd ever seen.  While Osgood initially denied killing Brown, he eventually confessed to police, telling them he remembered "seeing the fear in her eyes."  Osgood later urged a judge to give him the death penalty. 

This would be Florida's 4th execution of 2025, following a pause in 2020-2022.  The Florida Supreme Court on Monday, April 21, unanimously denied Jeffrey G. Hutchinson's latest appeal, according to an order posted on the state court's website.  Pending any other moves in state or federal courts by his attorneys, the war veteran convicted of murdering his girlfriend and her 3 young children in Crestview nearly 3 decades ago is scheduled to be put to death at 6 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 1, 2025. 

After 5 years on Texas' death row, convicted rapist and killer Moises Sandoval Mendoza, 40, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday. If the execution moves forward, Mendoza will be the third inmate executed in Texas this year, following Richard Tabler and Steven Nelson. It will be the 13th execution in the nation.  Mendoza was sentenced to death row for the murder of 20-year-old Rachelle O'Neil Tolleson on March 18, 2004, in Farmersville, Texas. Tolleson lived in the small town, about 40 miles northeast of Dallas, with her 6-month-old daughter Avery. 

After nearly 30 years behind bars, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in February that Glossip did not receive a fair trial. OKLAHOMA CITY — Richard Glossip, who spent decades on death row and came close to the execution chamber several times, has been moved to the Oklahoma County Detention Center. Online records show that Glossip was booked into the Oklahoma County jail shortly after 2:40 a.m. Tuesday on a first-degree murder charge. He was previously being held at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Glossip, who is being held without bond, was convicted of a murder-for-hire plot of hotel owner Barry Van Treese in January 1997. He has maintained his innocence since his conviction, and experts said evidence was withheld during his trial.

In the first three weeks of April 2025, at least 65 people have been executed in Iranian prisons. Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO): April 22, 2025: Saeed Darikvand, a man on death row for murder, was executed in Khorramabad Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Khorramabad Central Prison on 21 April 2025. His identity has been established as 29-year-old Saeed Darikvand from the Anarrou tribe in Mian Golal village in Khorramabad. He was arrested for murder three years ago and sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) by the Criminal Court.

Heartbroken grandmother of killed baby boy calls for death penalty to be handed to ‘inhumane’ driver who is labelled a ‘monster’ online A 20-year-old Chinese man who drove recklessly after quarrelling with his girlfriend caused an horrific accident that killed a family of three. The driver, who showed no remorse and laughed and joked about the deaths, has ignited a wave of public outrage online. The tragedy occurred on October 2, 2024, when the man, surnamed Liao, from Jingdezhen in southeast China’s Jiangxi province, drove recklessly after an argument with his girlfriend.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – Attorneys for the man who opened fire at a Charleston church in 2015, killing nine members of the congregation, have filed a motion to vacate his sentence. The motion to vacate Dylann Roof’s sentence was filed in US District Court – South Carolina on April 17. Documents detail 18 claims, two of which have been redacted, as to why attorneys argue Roof’s death sentence should be vacated. Charleston attorney Jill E.M. HaLevi and Indianapolis attorney Angela S. Elleman filed the motion on behalf of Roof. Attorneys are asking for a new penalty phase trial using the 18 claims as justification. The penalty phase is where sentencing is decided.

Hong Kong – China has executed a man over the fatal stabbing of a Japanese schoolboy in Shenzhen, southern China, in September last year, it was learned Monday. The Chinese Foreign Ministry informed the Japanese Embassy in Beijing the same day of the execution of Zhong Changchun, but did not provide details, such as when and where the punishment was carried out, diplomatic sources said. The stabbing, which took place on Sept. 18, 2024, occurred as the 10-year-old boy was walking to a local Japanese school.  The boy was stabbed in the stomach with a knife and died the following day.

Patrick Crusius had acknowledged he targeted Hispanics on Aug. 3, 2019, when he opened fire in the store crowded with weekend shoppers from the U.S. and Mexico in the border city of El Paso. The Texas gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack targeting “Mexican” shoppers at a Walmart in El Paso in 2019, was sentenced to 23 consecutive life sentences, after he pleaded guilty in state court Monday morning. Patrick Crusius accepted a plea deal offered by the El Paso District Attorney’s office in return for not pursuing the death penalty. District Attorney James Montoya said he offered the deal after a request from the majority of the families of those killed, in trying to bring this case to a close.

As of now, 73 individuals have been indicted on charges including illegal drug trafficking, illegal drug possession, and illegal possession of military-grade weapons. After more than ten months of extensive investigation, the Phu Tho Provincial Police have concluded their probe and recommended prosecution for 73 individuals across various provinces and cities in connection with a massive transnational drug trafficking ring. Phu Tho police, on the morning of April 22, confirmed this is the largest drug network ever uncovered in the province, both in scale and number of defendants.

Lindsay Sandiford, 68, reportedly shared 'cuddles and kisses' with her loved ones for the first time in years A British grandmother who has been stuck on death row in Bali for more than a decade has been reunited with her loved ones for the first time in years. Lindsay Sandiford has been locked up in Indonesia's notorious Kerobokan Prison since 2013 after being found guilty of trying to smuggle £1.6million of cocaine into the country.

As the city marks the 12th anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sits on federal death row for admittingly detonating bombs at the finish line that killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Yet, his fate remains uncertain after a decade of legal wrangling, as his lawyers continue to challenge his death sentence.  The federal judge who presided over his 2015 trial was ordered by an appeals court in March 2024 to investigate defense claims that two jurors were biased and should have been stricken from the panel. If he finds they were, then Tsarnaev is entitled to a new trial over whether he should be sentenced to life in prison or death, according to the appeals court. 

The court, however, acquitted two other suspects -- Daud William and Shahid Aftab -- for want of evidence against them. A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has awarded a death sentence to a Christian man for committing blasphemy and implicating two fellow Christians in a false (blasphemy) case that caused an anti-Christian riot in a city of Punjab province in 2023, a court official said on Saturday. He also awarded him 10 year jail, with a total PKR 3 million fine under section 295-A of the PPC.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); April 18, 2025: Shamseddin Fazli, a man on death row for murder, was executed in Tabriz Central Prison. With Seifollah Nasiri’s previously reported execution, the number of executions at the prison has risen to two that day. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Tabriz Central Prison on 9 April 2025. His identity has been established as 27-year-old Shamseddin Fazli who was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder.

A group of federal prisoners filed a lawsuit this week accusing the Trump administration of seeking to move them to a supermax prison to face tougher conditions as punishment for having their death sentences commuted by President Joe Biden. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized Biden’s decision to commute the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates to life in prison without parole. After his inauguration, Trump ordered that the former death row prisoners be housed “in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.”

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled last week that a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole for young adults who were 19 or 20 years old at the time of the offense is a “grossly disproportionate punishment” that violates the Michigan Constitution. The decision extends to 19- and 20-year-olds the court’s 2022 ruling in People v. Parks , which applied the federal constitutional ban on automatic life-without-parole sentences for juveniles to 18-year-olds under the broader and more protective provisions of the Michigan Constitution.

32-year-old Xavier Davis, a man accused in the 2021 slaying of a Houston family of three, was sentenced to death following a nearly four-week long trial in the case. Prosecutors with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office had long sought the death penalty against the man accused of shooting and killing 35-year-old Gregory Carhee, 29-year-old Donyavia Lagway and their daughter, 6-year-old Harmony Carhee, at their apartment in southwest Houston on June 30, 2021. Just minutes into a jury trial to determine Davis’s role in the 2021 slaying of the Houston family, he pleaded guilty to capital murder charges ahead of opening statements in the case, March 24.

Taipei, April 18 (CNA) Taiwan's Supreme Court on Friday revoked the death sentence of Liang Yu-chih (梁育誌), who was convicted of murdering a Malaysian university student in 2020, and ordered a new trial. The court said the most recent ruling by the Taiwan High Court Kaohsiung Branch, issued in January, failed to thoroughly examine the evidence and did not provide sufficient reasoning. The case can still be appealed. This is the first case to reaffirm a death sentence after Taiwan's Constitutional Court ruled in September 2024 that capital punishment is conditionally constitutional.

In a significant shift in legal response to crimes against minors, the House Judiciary and Public Safety Oversight Committee has passed a bill that introduces the death penalty as a potential sentence for first-time offenders convicted of severely heinous sex crimes against children under 14, as informed by the Oklahoma House of Representatives.  Sponsored by Rep. Tim Turner, R-Kinta, Senate Bill 599 could mark a drastic change in how child rapists are punished, potentially facing the ultimate penalty upon their first conviction.

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); April 16, 2025: A Kurdish and a Baluch man named Yadegar Rahimnejad and Abubakr Shehbakhsh were executed for drug-related offences in Kerman Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, two men were hanged in Kerman Central Prison on 15 April 2025. Their identities have been established as Yadegar Rahimnejad, a Kurdish man from Baneh, and Abubakr Shehbakhsh, a 36-year-old Baluch man from Sarjangal in Zahedan.

These are just the US executioners we know. But they are a chilling indication of the executioners we don’t know Being an executioner is not the sort of job that gets posted in a local wanted ad. Kids don’t dream about being an executioner when they grow up, and people don’t go to school for it. So how does one become a death row executioner in the US, and who are the people doing it? This was the question I couldn’t help but ask when I began a book project on lethal injection back in 2018. I’m a death penalty researcher, and I was trying to figure out why states are so breathtakingly bad at a procedure that we use on cats and dogs every day. Part of the riddle was who is performing these executions.

CATAHOULA PARISH, La. — While a federal death row sentence has been reclassified by former President Joe Biden to life without parole, the State of Louisiana still seeks the death penalty for a man convicted of the kidnapping, torturing and murdering a child in Catahoula Parish.  According to a statement by the Seventh Judicial District of Louisiana District Attorney Bradley Burget, on Monday, a Catahoula Parish Grand Jury indicted Thomas Steven Sanders for the first-degree murder of 12-year-old Lexis Kaye Roberts in 2010. 

Beijing, April 17 (Jiji Press)--A man sentenced to death in China over an attack on two Japanese people that left a Chinese woman dead has been executed, people familiar with relations between Japan and China said Thursday. The Chinese Foreign Ministry informed the Japanese Embassy in China of the execution on Wednesday.  The specific date and time of the execution remain unknown. The man, Zhou Jiasheng, was convicted of intentional murder over the incident last June, in which he attacked with a knife a Japanese woman and her child waiting at a bus stop for a Japanese school bus in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, eastern China.

April 16 (UPI) -- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed the death warrant for a man convicted of killing a 34-year-old mother of two in 1995 in a southern Hillsborough County motel room. The Republican governor signed the death warrant for 62-year-old Glen Rogers on Tuesday, setting his execution for 6 p.m. EDT on May 15. It is the fifth death warrant DeSantis has signed so far this year. Rogers, a so-called drifter suspected of being responsible for several killings around the country, was convicted of first-degree murder in May 1997 for the stabbing death of Tina Marie Cribbs. He was sentenced to death in the case that July.

The condemned man has exhausted his appeals but is likely to seek a clemency plea. Indiana Supreme Court justices on Tuesday set a May 20 execution date for death row inmate Benjamin Ritchie, who was convicted in 2002 for killing a law enforcement officer from Beech Grove. The high court’s decision followed a series of exhausted appeals previously filed by Ritchie and his legal team. The inmate’s request for post-conviction relief was denied in Tuesday’s 13-page order, penned by Chief Justice Loretta Rush, although she disagreed with the decision in her opinion.