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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.

USA: Meet the Exonerated

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We see their broad smiles as they stride to freedom, exchanging embraces with loved ones and flanked by jubilant lawyers. We watch as they step to a bevy of microphones and briefly describe the prison hell they left behind and the uncertain future that lies ahead. For some, a decade of their lives lost. For others, 20, 30, even 40 years, gone forever.

We shake our heads and wonder: Didn't this also happen only a couple of weeks ago? Wasn't that guy innocent, too? Jeez, how many are there?

Now we finally have a measure of the iceberg's tip. Counting only felony cases where innocence has been officially restored, there have been 873 exonerations since 1989, according to a report just released by the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan Law School. The researchers also identified at least 1,170 cases since 1995 in which police framed innocent defendants, mostly for drug and gun crimes.

The implications are staggering. During the last 23 years, in an average week, at least one prisoner was exonerated.


Source: Huffington Post, David Protess, President, Chicago Innocence Project, May 25, 2012.
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Missouri executes Brian Dorsey

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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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Why witnesses could only see part of the process when Missouri executed Brian Dorsey

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Another Young Man Executed in Iran as Death Penalty Cases Rise

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Prison authorities of the Islamic Republic have executed another young man amid a significant rise in the use of the death penalty. The inmate convicted of murder was executed at Khorramabad Prison on April 5, according to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights Organization. The inmate, identified as 30-year-old Hassan-Ali Mirzania, was reportedly found guilty four years ago of fatally shooting two brothers with a hunting rifle.
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Japan | Death-row inmates' lawsuit targeting same-day notifications of executions dismissed

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India | Efforts on to raise money to save man facing death penalty in Saudi Arabia

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Missouri | Condemned inmate could face ‘surgery without anesthesia’ if good vein is elusive, lawyers say

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Ending death penalty in Taiwan

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