executions

Arkansas death-row inmate Kenneth Williams is scheduled to be executed on Thursday.

National

Arkansas Poised To Carry Out Its Fourth Execution This Month

2:16pm April 27, 2017

by Merrit Kennedy

And hours before his scheduled execution, lawyers for death-row inmate Kenneth Williams continued to try to stop it in court. He is the fourth and final inmate scheduled to die in Arkansas this month.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson prepares for an interview at the Governor's Mansion in Little Rock, Ark., on April 13. The governor met with reporters to discuss the state's schedule of executions. So far, one of the executions has been carried out, four hav

National

Arkansas Executes Two Inmates, The First Double Execution In U.S. Since 2000

11:43pm April 24, 2017

by Camila Domonoske

Arkansas had planned to kill eight death row inmates in 11 days before courts intervened in some of the cases. Officials wanted to move quickly before supplies of a key lethal injection drug expired.

Death row inmates Stacey Johnson (left) and Ledell Lee are both scheduled to be put to death Thursday, though court rulings have put those executions on hold for now.

National

Court Rulings Block 2 Scheduled Executions Today In Arkansas

3:01pm April 20, 2017

by Merrit Kennedy

Arkansas' attempt to carry out a spate of executions before the end of the month has so far been thwarted by a dizzying series of court decisions. The state is still preparing to execute the two men.

This combination of undated photos provided by the Arkansas Department of Correction shows the death row inmates in question. Top row (from left): Jack Harold Jones Jr., Marcel Williams, Stacey E. Johnson, Ledell Lee. Bottom row (from left): Jason F. McGe

National

Courts Block 7 Executions Set For 11-Day Span In Arkansas

8:18pm April 14, 2017

A county judge and the state supreme court ordered the state not to put the inmates to death. The larger case challenges lethal drugs. The other argues that the inmate is not sane.

Alabama's lethal injection chamber in 2002 at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala.

National

Amnesty Says 2016 Saw Fewer Executions But More Death Sentences

3:24pm April 11, 2017

by Merrit Kennedy

Amnesty estimates China killed more people than all the other countries put together. The U.S. fell off the list of the top five countries to carry out the death penalty for the first time since 2006.

National

Federal Judge Blocks 1 Of 8 Upcoming Executions In Arkansas

4:32pm April 06, 2017

by Camila Domonoske

Arkansas was preparing to execute the inmates before one of its lethal-injection drugs expired. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. said one inmate's clemency bid requires the state to wait 30 days.

Lawyers for the family of Nie Shubin, who was executed by firing squad in 1995 for rape and murder, leave court in December 2014. China's Supreme Court exonerated Nie on Dec. 2, following years of effort by his family to clear his name.

World News

China Exonerates Man Executed 21 Years Ago For A Murder He Didn't Commit

1:57pm December 15, 2016

by Anthony Kuhn

A grieving mother fought for more than 20 years to clear her son's name after his wrongful conviction. Miscarriages of justice are rarely reversed in China and this is seen as a landmark case.

An Iraqi man prays in 2015 for his slain relative, at the site of a mass grave, believed to contain the bodies of Iraqi soldiers killed by Islamic State group militants when they overran Camp Speicher military base, in Tikrit, Iraq.

World News

Iraq Executes 36 Accused Of Slaying More Than A Thousand Iraqi Soldiers

1:46pm August 21, 2016

by Merrit Kennedy

They were accused of carrying out the 2014 ISIS massacre of over a thousand Iraqi troops. The U.N. discouraged fast-tracking the executions, saying torture may have been used to extract confessions.

Family members of Shafqat Hussain, who was convicted and hanged in Pakistan in August for killing a boy in 2004, waited to receive his body outside the central jail in Karachi. Pakistan executed more than 300 people last year.

World News

Fewer Countries Are Relying On Death Penalty, But They're Executing More

7:05pm January 07, 2016

by Jackie Northam

Saudi Arabia's spate of 47 executions last week continued a trend from 2015, in which several countries that have the death penalty used it more often.

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People gather opposite Downing Street during a protest against the execution of a young woman in Iran, in October of last year. Amnesty International says that Iran has undergone an "unprecedented spike" in executions in recent months.

World News

Executions In Iran Undergo 'Unprecedented Spike,' Amnesty Says

1:57pm July 23, 2015

by Scott Neuman

The rights advocacy group says it has credible reports that Iran executed at least 743 in 2014 and nearly as many so far this year, executing on average three people a day.