In Tennessee, 68-year-old Byron Black, who lawyers say has an intellectual disability, dementia, and brain damage, is scheduled to be executed on August 5, after the state Supreme Court declined Black’s lawyers’ petition asking the Court to reverse a lower court ruling refusing to decide whether Black is eligible to be executed, The Tennesseean reported. https://tinyurl.com/mr2kzjc2 Black, convicted and sentenced to death in 1989 for the murder of his 29-year-old girlfriend, Angela Clay, and her daughters, nine-year-old Latoya, and six-year-old Lakesha, is among the longest-serving people incarcerated on death row. His lawyer told The Tennesseean she will appeal the state’s high court ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, stating that “We hope the State will not move forward with the execution of this frail, elderly man with intellectual disability, dementia, and brain damage.”
In Indiana, the attorney general’s office requested an execution date for Roy Lee Ward earlier this month. However, it is unclear whether the state has the lethal injection drugs it needs to kill Ward, Indiana Public Media reports. https://tinyurl.com/bduktvse Ward was sentenced to death in 2007 for the 2001 rape and murder of 15-year-old Stacy Payne. If the state Supreme Court approves the request, the 52-year-old Ward would be the third person executed in Indiana since December of last year, following a 15-year hiatus. According to the Indiana Capital Chronicle, https://tinyurl.com/4axf9hfj the state has already spent over a million dollars on pentobarbital for the previous two executions. The Capital Chronicle reports that Gov. Braun revealed he is encouraging legislators to discuss the future of the death penalty and executions in the state, “in terms of, is that [pentobarbital] what we’re going to use, and then on the issue itself.”
In Utah, 67-year-old Ralph Menzies is scheduled to be executed on September 5, despite his pending appeal that his vascular dementia diagnosis renders him incompetent to be killed by the state, KSL.com https://tinyurl.com/28b3m4xm reports. According to KSL, the judge who denied a stay based on the appeal said that Menzies’ lawyers can now ask an appellate court to consider the stay. Menzies was sentenced to death in 1988 for the 1986 abduction and murder of 26-year-old Maurine Hunsaker, who worked at a gas station in Kearns, Utah.
In Alabama, Republican Rep. Matt Simpson pre-filed a bill for the 2026 legislative session that would expand the state’s death penalty to include murder of multiple people during a mass shooting or attack in public spaces, WDHN reports https://tinyurl.com/428vwk9u. According to WDHN, Alabama already allows capital charges in 21 circumstances, including killing a child under 14, killing a law enforcement officer, or killing someone during a robbery or kidnapping. Simpson attempted to expand the death penalty statute during the 2025 legislative session to include the sexual assault of a minor, but was unsuccessful, according to WDHN.
In Texas HB115, a bill sponsored by Republican Rep. David Cook, that would reform the state’s junk science law, passed the House of Representatives by an astonishing margin of 124-14 earlier this month, but did not make it through the state Senate, is still “a fantastic step for first-time legislation, “Texas Defender Service Executive Director Burke Butler noted. “The fixes in HB 115 would ensure that innocent people convicted based on junk science have a genuine pathway for relief,” she said. TDS released a report https://www.texasdefender.org/unfilfilled-promise/ last year, “An Unfulfilled Promise: Assessing the Efficacy of Article 11.073,” that found that “Texas’s junk science law is not operating as legislators intended to exonerate innocent people convicted based on junk science.” Butler is rightfully “look[ing] forward to seeing the bill pass over the finish line next session.”
In Washington, D.C., earlier this month, a federal appeals court overturned a plea deal that would have meant life sentences instead of possible death sentences for the accused mastermind of the 9/11 attack and two other defendants, the New York Times reported https://tinyurl.com/6t5935mw .