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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. 

Restoring death penalty in Algeria needs open debate: official

ALGIERS, Nov.13 (Xinhua) -- Algerian Justice Minister Tayeb Louh said on Thursday the restoration of the suspended death penalty in the country requires an open and objective debate, the official APS news agency reported.

Louh made the remarks as he answered a question asked by parliament members at the lower house on the reasons for non- application of the death penalty in Algeria. He said this issue should include all classes of society because of its political, social and moral characters.

Algeria has decided to suspend the application of the death penalty since 1993, amid a decade long civil war that claimed 150, 000 victims. Algeria is among 53 countries in the world that have abolished the death penalty in practice, according to Amnesty International.

In recent years, some political activists, associations and lawyers pleaded for restoring the death penalty in Algeria, especially following the surge in crimes against children.

The Algerian Penal Code adopted since December, 2013 new provisions concerning the death penalty, which can now be imposed on "child abductors in case the victim dies."

Louh believes that "judicial sanction, in its modern sense, is not of a vindictive nature, but rather aims to protect the society by identifying personal and social causes leading to crime."

Source: Xinhua, Nov. 14, 2014

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