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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. 

The uncomfortable truth about executions

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After a leaked report revealed China executes 3 times more people than the world combined, here are the facts about capital punishment across the globe

This week the Dui Hua Foundation exposed the shocking number of executions that took place in China in 2013.

According to the US-based pressure group, China executed 2,400 people.

The number, which is troubling in itself, is even more disturbing when put into a global context - as it reveals last year China executed 3 times more people than the world combined.

The total number of executions for the rest of the world was 778 people in 2013, according to Amnesty International.

The next highest execution rate was Iran is the next biggest executor with at least 369, followed byIraq with at least with at least 169.

Other uncomfortable facts have come out of the latest round of statistics - for example, Belarus remains the only European country to still have the death penalty.

Meanwhile in Japan, India, Malaysia and South Sudan, prisoners were not told they were to be executed - and neither were their lawyers or even their family.

Amnesty International say that despite these shocking numbers the global trend remains towards abolition - with 173 of 193 members of the United Nations execution-free.

Source: The Telegraph, October 24, 2014
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