Entries by Nina Motazedi

On July 22, 2025, attor­neys with the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation filed a peti­tion on behalf of two crim­i­nal defen­dants — Jordan Clarke and Joshua George — alleg­ing Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh has demon­strat­ed a pat­tern of improp­er­ly threat­en­ing or seek­ing death sen­tences in vio­la­tion of the United States Constitution and the Pennsylvania Constitution. The attor­neys are ask­ing the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to use its​“extra­or­di­nary…

Nearly half of all known exe­cu­tions to date in 2025 in Iran (244) and Saudi Arabia (50) have been for drug-relat­ed crimes, track­ing close­ly pat­terns doc­u­ment­ed by Harm Reduction International (HRI) for 2024. According to HRI​’s new report, The Death Penalty for Drug Offenses: Global Overview 2024, the use of the death penal­ty for drug-relat­ed crimes reached​“cri­sis lev­els” in 2024. At least 615 peo­ple were known to be exe­cut­ed on drug-relat­ed charges world­wide, 607 of…

More than one hun­dred bills have been intro­duced this year in 34 states and in Congress to expand and lim­it use of the death penal­ty, abol­ish and rein­state the death penal­ty, mod­i­fy exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols and secret the infor­ma­tion about them, and alter aspects of cap­i­tal tri­als. Thus far, nine bills in five states have been enact­ed, with Florida enact­ing the most leg­is­la­tion. Of the bills that have been signed into law, three mod­i­fy exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols; two expand…

According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), there have been at least 343 exe­cu­tions in Iran in the first four months of 2025 — a 75% increase over the same peri­od in 2024, when 195 exe­cu­tions were record­ed. Secrecy remains an issue with less than 4%, or only 13 of the 343 exe­cu­tions, report­ed by offi­cial sources. In April alone, there were at least 110 exe­cu­tions, the high­est month­ly total yet this year. Trends iden­ti­fied in recent years appear to be sustained into…

A new report pub­lished by Ius Stella, a non-prof­it in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), high­lights ongo­ing human rights vio­la­tions in the nation’s efforts to elim­i­nate urban gangs, which has been marked by arbi­trary arrest and the impo­si­tion of death sen­tences, includ­ing on vul­ner­a­ble civil­ian youth pop­u­la­tions, after mil­i­tary tri­als whose fair­ness is in grave doubt. Earlier in January, reports emerged that 170 death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers, ages 18 to 35, con­vict­ed for their links to…