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Arkansas Supreme Court Decision Allows New DNA Testing in Case of the ​“West Memphis Three,” Convicted of Killing Three Children in 1993

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On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence. 

Vinalines’ Former Executives Sentenced to Death in Vietnam Trial

Two former executives at Vietnam National Shipping Lines were found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to death today [Dec. 16] by a Hanoi court, underscoring the government’s efforts to clamp down on corporate corruption.

The People’s Court of Hanoi sentenced Duong Chi Dung, the former chairman of Vinalines, as the state-owned company is known, and Mai Van Phuc, its former general director, to death for embezzlement, according to a verdict read at the court today. The two former executives were convicted of embezzling 10 billion dong ($474,000) each.

The death-penalty sentences, bringing the total to four handed down in a month, are the latest in a string of cases as the government seeks to curb corporate graft. The sentences may signal a crackdown of state companies as Vietnam works to reform the state sector and a banking system weighed down by Southeast Asia’s highest rate of bad debt.

“This case became a kind of poster boy for corruption,” said Alan Pham, Ho Chi Minh City-based chief economist at VinaCapital Group, the nation’s largest fund manager. “If the death sentence is carried out, that would really be a deterrent. There are many other cases that have not been exposed.”

Source: Bloomberg, December 16, 2013

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