Vietnam: Lethal injections to replace guns in November

Vietnam will officially carry out lethal injections from November this year to replace firing squads in the implementation of death penalties, according to a new government decree.

According to the decree, issued for the implementation of the Law on Execution of Criminal Judgments and signed by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on September 16, local provincial authorities must build lethal injection facilities.

The Ministry of Health will be responsible for supplying the chemicals used in lethal injections, including the barbiturate anesthetic Sodium thiopental, muscle relaxant Pancuronium bromide and Potassium chloride – the three chemicals most common in lethal injection combination used by many countries.

Each dose comprises of 5 grams of sodium thiopental, 100 milligrams of pancuronium bromide and 100 grams of potassium chloride. Two extra doses are required at each execution as spare chemicals.

The decree stipulates “strictly prohibited acts” during execution, including replacing or changing the volume of chemicals for lethal injections, causing public nuisance at the execution facility and opposing the progress of the execution.

During execution of death penalties, the execution council must ensure the criminal is unconscious under the impact of anesthetic; otherwise more anesthetic will be injected before continuing with the other 2 chemicals.

The extra dose will be used if the criminal is still alive – through checking the heart rate – ten minutes after the first doses.

The health ministry is responsible for instructing public hospitals to assign doctors to identify the vein for the intravenous injection and receiving and storing the body in the case that such action is requested by the execution council.

Cao Ngoc Oanh, a senior official at the Ministry of Public Security, said that the costs for establishing teams of executioners in provinces and districts aren’t a big problem, because there aren’t many death sentences in Vietnam, around 100 cases per year, he said.

Executed criminals have historically been buried in a separate graveyard. However, the Law on Execution of Criminal Judgments taking effect on July 1 allows the executed person’s family to retrieve his or her body, except in cases that concern public and national security.

In 2009, Vietnam removed rape and several other offences from the list of crimes punishable by death.

In addition to rape, National Assembly deputies have voted to remove six other offences from the list, including awarding of bribes, counterfeiting of money and bonds, hijacking ships and planes, vandalism of weapons and military equipment, and appropriation of property through swindling.

Vietnam had reduced the number of death penalty crimes in 1999 to 22 crimes.

Before the Law on Execution of Criminal Judgment takes effect, all death sentences in Vietnam, mostly handed out for murder and drug trafficking offenses, will be carried out by a firing squad.

In 2009, there were at least 83 death sentences handed down and nine executions, according to Vietnamese media reports. Vietnamese authorities do not issue death penalty statistics.

In a scandalous murder case last year, the Supreme People’s Court in Hanoi in November last year upheld a death sentence against 26-year-old Nguyen Duc Nghia, who pled guilty to beheading and robbing his ex-girlfriend in July.

The case grabbed headlines when Nghia was found guilty of stabbing his ex-girlfriend to death and chopping off her head and fingers before wrapping her torso in a blanket and stashing it on the building’s rooftop.

Alongside the replacement of firing squads with the lethal injection, which is said to be more humane by many lawmakers, Vietnam has granted amnesty to more than 10,000 inmates this year.

Last year, Vietnam released more than 17,000 inmates for National Day amnesty.

Source: Thanh Nien News, Sept. 24, 2011

Comments

Florida executes Michael Tanzi

Florida on Tuesday executed a death row inmate described by one local detective as a "fledgling serial killer" for the murder of a beloved Miami Herald employee. Florida executed Michael Tanzi on Tuesday, 25 years after the murder of beloved Miami Herald employee Janet Acosta, who was attacked in broad daylight on her lunch break in 2000. Michael Tanzi, 48, was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford and pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. ET.

South Carolina | Man who ambushed off-duty cop to face firing squad in second execution of its kind

Mikal Mahdi, 48, who was found guilty of killing an off-duty police officer and a convenience store worker, is the second inmate scheduled to executed by South Carolina's new firing squad A murderer who ambushed and shot an off duty police officer eight times before burning his body in a killing spree is set to become the second person to die by firing squad. South Carolina's highest court has rejected the last major appeal from Mikal Mahdi, 41, who is to be put to death with three bullets to the heart at 6pm on April 11 at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Mahdi's lawyers said his original lawyers put on a shallow case trying to spare his life that didn't call on relatives, teachers or people who knew him and ignored the impact of weeks spent in solitary confinement in prison as a teen.

Afghanistan | Four men publicly executed by Taliban with relatives of victims shooting them 'six or seven times' at sport stadium

Four men have been publicly executed by the Taliban, with relatives of their victims shooting them several times in front of spectators at a sport stadium. Two men were shot around six to seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the centre of Afghanistan's Badghis province, witnesses told an AFP journalist in the city. The men had been 'sentenced to retaliatory punishment' for shooting other men, after their cases were 'examined very precisely and repeatedly', the statement said. 'The families of the victims were offered amnesty and peace but they refused.'

South Carolina executes Mikal Mahdi

Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers A man facing the death penalty for committing two murders was executed by firing squad on Friday, the second such execution in the US state of South Carolina this year. Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers, an off-duty police officer, and the murder of a convenience store employee three days earlier. According to a statement from the prison, "the execution was performed by a three-person firing squad at 6:01 pm (2201 GMT)," with Mahdi pronounced dead four minutes later.

Lethal Injection, Electric Chair, or Firing Squad? An Inhumane Decision for Death Row Prisoners

South Carolina resumed executions with the firing squad killing of Brad Sigmon last month. Mikal Madhi’s execution date is days away. The curtain shrieked as it was yanked open to reveal a 67-year-old man tied to a chair. His arms were pulled uncomfortably behind his back. The red bull’s-eye target on his chest rose and fell as he desperately attempted to still his breathing. The man, Brad Sigmon, smiled at his attorney, Bo King, seated in the front row before guards placed a black bag over his head. King said Sigmon appeared to be trying his best to put on a brave face for those who had come to bear witness.

USA | Why the firing squad may be making a comeback

South Carolina plans to execute Mikal Mahdi on Friday for the murder of a police officer, draping a hood over his head and firing three bullets into his heart. The choice to die by firing squad – rather than lethal injection or the electric chair – was Mahdi’s own, his attorney said last month: “Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils.” If it proceeds, Mahdi’s execution would be the latest in a recent string of events that have put the spotlight on the firing squad as a handful of US death penalty states explore alternatives to lethal injection, by far the nation’s dominant execution method.

I spent 16 years in solitary in South Carolina. This is what it did to me. | Opinion

South Carolinian Randy Poindexter writes about the effects 16 years of solitary confinement had on him ahead of South Carolina’s planned execution of Mikal Mahdi , who spent months in solitary as a young man. For 16 years, I lived in a concrete cell. Twenty-three hours a day, every day, for more than 3,000 days, South Carolina kept me in solitary confinement. I was a young man before I was sent to solitary — angry, untreated and unwell. I made mistakes. But I wasn’t sentenced to madness. That’s what solitary did to me. My mental health worsened with each passing day. At first, paranoia and depression set in. Then, hallucinations and self-mutilation. I talked to people who weren’t there. I cut myself to feel something besides despair. I could do nothing as four of my friends and fellow prisoners took their own lives rather than endure another day of torturous isolation.

Louisiana | Lawyers of Jessie Hoffman speak about their final moments before execution

As Louisiana prepared its first execution in 15 years, a team of lawyers from Loyola Law were working to save Jessie Hoffman’s life. “I was a young lawyer three years out of law school, and Jessie was almost finished with his appeals at that time, and my boss told me we needed to file something for Jessie because he’s in danger of being executed,” Kappel said. Kappel and her boss came up with a civil lawsuit to file that said since they wouldn’t give him a protocol for his execution, he was being deprived of due process, and the lawsuit was in the legal process for the next 10 years.

Arizona | The cruelty of isolation: There’s nothing ‘humane’ about how we treat the condemned

On March 19, I served as a witness to the execution of a man named Aaron Gunches, Arizona’s first since 2022. During his time on death row, he begged for death and was ultimately granted what is likely more appropriately described as an emotionless state-assisted suicide. This experience has profoundly impacted me, leading to deep reflection on the nature of death, humanity, and the role we play in our final moments. When someone is in the end stages of life, we talk about hospice care, comfort, care, easing suffering and humane death. We strive for a “good death” — a peaceful transition. I’ve seen good ones, and I’ve seen bad, unplanned ones.

'No Warning': The Death Penalty In Japan

Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite criticism over how it is carried out. Tokyo: Capital punishment in Japan is under scrutiny again after the world's longest-serving death row prisoner, Iwao Hakamada, was awarded $1.4 million in compensation this week following his acquittal last year in a retrial. Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite international criticism over how it is carried out.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog