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Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

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Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.

Former Alabama Death Row inmate Anthony Ray Hinton to be freed after new testing on bullets

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Anthony Ray Hinton
Anthony Ray Hinton, who spent nearly 30 years on Alabama's death row, will be freed Friday morning after prosecutors told a judge they won't re-try him for the 1985 slayings of two fast-food managers after new testing couldn't match crime scene bullets to a gun found in Hinton's house.

Chief Deputy Jefferson County District Attorney John Bowers and Assistant District Attorney Mike Anderton filed a motion late Wednesday afternoon to drop the prosecution of Hinton on the capital murder charges.

The charges are being dropped after "three experts found that they could not conclusively determine that any of the six bullets" were fired from a gun found in Hinton's home, the motion states.

Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Laura Petro on Thursday morning issued an order dismissing the case.

She also ordered the Alabama Department of Corrections to forward paperwork to the Jefferson County Jail, where Hinton has been awaiting his re-trial, so he can be released at 9:30 a.m. Friday.

Click here to read the full article

Source: AL.com, April 2, 2015

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Location: Alabama, USA
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