Ronald Bert Smith Jr. died by lethal injection late Thursday night, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to stay his execution. A judge sentenced Smith to die for murdering a man in 1994.
The judge in the federal trial of Dylann Roof, who is accused of murdering nine people in the basement of a historically black church, has ruled that the defendant may represent himself in court.
California voters rejected a ballot measure that would have abolished capital punishment, and narrowly approved a competing measure designed to speed up the execution process.
California and Washington passed stricter gun control measures, Nebraska and Oklahoma both passed measures backing the death penalty, and Colorado became the sixth state to legalize assisted suicide.
A Utah lawmaker who led the push to bring back the firing squad is proposing a mandatory death penalty for anyone who targets and kills a police officer.
The country writ large has seen a slowdown in executions. In Texas, a leader in executions, Fuller could become the first person put to death in more than five months.
Duane Buck was given the death penalty after an expert witness testified that he was more likely to be dangerous in the future because he was black. The Supreme Court hears his case Wednesday.
The state says it intends to use a three-drug cocktail to execute Ronald Phillips in January. While state officials did not disclose where they acquired the drugs, they say they are FDA approved.
Turkey abolished capital punishment in 2004. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says public demand for restoring it can't be ignored. But doing so would hurt Turkey's bid to join the EU.
Capital murder trials and executions had been hold awaiting this decision. The justices found that juries, not judges, should have final say in whether to sentence someone to death.
John Hinckley's not-guilty verdict prompted tighter restrictions on the insanity defense. Civil rights advocates say that means seriously ill people are imprisoned without adequate treatment.
The Nevada Department of Corrections says it will move forward with construction of a new execution chamber despite a shortage of lethal injection drugs.
The drugmaker was the "last remaining open-market source of drugs used in executions," The New York Times reported. Other U.S. and European firms had already blocked drugs from use in executions.
According to Amnesty International, the rise was driven mostly by Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. It's a different story in the U.S., where a majority of states have essentially halted executions.
A 46-year-old ex-convict accused of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and wounding her mother more than three years ago wants to challenge the constitutionality of Nevada's death penalty.
Iranian state media report that Babak Zanjani, an oil trader who allegedly helped Iran evade oil sanctions, has been convicted of "spreading corruption on earth." Zanjani can appeal the verdict.
A Republican state lawmaker wants Utah to join 19 states and the District of Columbia in abolishing the death penalty, but supporters of the idea acknowledge it's a longshot in the conservative state.
The state's highest court has delayed next week's planned execution of an inmate until until it determines how to apply a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the state's death penalty system is flawed.
Florida's highest court will hear a case that may determine the fate of some 390 death row inmates. The case comes after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state's death sentencing system.
