Wesley Purkey was executed by lethal injection on Thursday, the second federal execution this week after a 17-year hiatus. The court's 5-4 decision allowed the execution to proceed.
The case of Nathaniel Woods garnered national attention, including from Martin Luther King III, the son of the late civil rights leader, who was among those who fought to block the execution.
California voters are the only ones who can repeal the death penalty, something they've rejected twice in recent elections. The Governor's moratorium will spare the lives of over 700 inmates.
Domineque Ray said the state was violating his constitutional rights by only offering a Christian chaplain. The high court ruled 5-4 that the execution could go ahead as planned.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott granted clemency for 38-year-old Thomas Whitaker. Meanwhile, Florida put to death Eric Scott Branch, and Alabama will have to reschedule the execution of Doyle Lee Hamm.
Lawyers for convicted murderer Kenneth Williams unsuccessfully sought stays from courts including the U.S. Supreme Court. Williams is the fourth and final inmate to die in Arkansas this month.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's unclear if GOP Gov. Gary Herbert will sign the measure, which would make Utah the only state in the nation to allow firing squads, into law. Utah abandoned the practice more than a decade ago.
The Republican-controlled House has voted to revive the option, which was discontinued in 2004, if the state cannot obtain the drugs needed to perform an execution by lethal injection.
The execution of three inmates has been put on hold, as the Supreme Court intervenes in a case that involves the controversy over the drugs used to put people to death.
