INDEX

The number of executions in the United States was at its lowest in 20 years and seven death row prisoners were exonerated in 2014.

The National Assembly of Madagascar adopted a bill that abolishes the death penalty on 10 December, World Human Rights Day.

The House of Delegates has passed a bill replacing the death penalty with life in prison without parole. The governor of the US state has been supporting the bill and promised to sign it into law.

Lawmakers in the US State of Connecticut have abolished capital punishment and the State’s governor has said that he would sign the bill into law. Elizabeth Zitrin of the US NGO Death Penalty Focus chairs the World Coalition’s working group on the United States. She writes on the significance of this news for the wider abolitionist movement.

After nearly two months of fierce lobbying on both sides, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn abolishes the death penalty in the state and commutes all current death sentences to life in prison.

The West African nation outlawed the death penalty in February 2010 and then kept the secret for over a year.

Recent figures show that a January ruling by the Ugandan supreme court making it illegal to keep people on death row for more than three years has saved 167 lives.

A joint effort by Kenyan and British lawyers and NGOs resulted in a court decision overturning all death sentences for murder. Legislation making capital punishment the only possible penalty for certain crimes is invalid.

The American death row inmate heard the news less than one hour before he was scheduled to die. From Huntsville to Paris, activists demand that new evidence be examined.