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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. 

Iran confirms death sentence for 'porn site' web programmer Saeed Malekpour

Saeed Malekpour
Iran's supreme court has upheld the death sentence for a web programmer who faces imminent execution after being found guilty of developing and promoting porn websites.

Saeed Malekpour was picked up by plainclothes officers in October 2008 and taken to Evin prison in Tehran, where he spent a year in solitary confinement without access to lawyers and without charge.


A year after his arrest, the 35-year-old appeared in a state television programme confessing to a series of crimes in connection with a porn website. On the basis of his TV confessions, he was convicted of designing and moderating adult materials online by a court in Tehran, which handed down death penalty.

Malekpour later retracted his confessions in a letter sent from prison, in which he said they had been made under duress.

According to Malekpour's family, he is a permanent resident of Canada and is a programmer who wrote photo-uploading software that was used by a porn website without his knowledge.

His sister, Maryam Malekpour, said the supreme court had confirmed the death sentence despite many discrepancies in the case. "Saeed's lawyers were told that his death sentence will be issued this week," she said in an interview with the Iranian website Roozonline.

After an international campaign and new expert evidence, the supreme court suspended Malekpour's death sentence in June 2011 and ordered a judicial review.


Source: The Guardian, January 18, 2012

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Nov 01, 2011
Last Wednesday Saeed Malekpour was taken to Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court and was handed down a death sentence from Judge Moghisheh for the second time. He also received an additional sentence of 7.5 years...
Jun 08, 2011
For 6 months Canadian resident Saeed Malekpour has been living in the shadow of death in Iran's feared Evin prison. But the Supreme Court has rescinded the death sentence and the case against him is being reviewed. ...
Dec 06, 2010
Any negotiations undertaken by the Canadian government to secure the release of Saeed Malekpour, a Richmond Hill, Ont., website developer facing the death penalty in Iran for allegedly designing “adult” websites, are ...
Jan 31, 2011
Saeed Malekpour, 35, was convicted of "designing and moderating adult content websites," "agitation against the regime" in Tehran, and "insulting the sanctity of Islam," according to an online campaign calling for his release. ...

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