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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.

Tennessee: Stephen Michael West moved to death watch ahead of Thursday's scheduled execution

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Stephen Michael West
Death row inmate Stephen Michael West has been moved into a cell next to the execution chamber, where he is scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday night unless Gov. Bill Lee intervenes.

Prison officials announced the move Tuesday, saying West, 56, had been placed on death watch. 

Death watch is the three-day period before an execution when a death row inmate is placed under 24-hour observation and stricter rules.

During death watch, West will get daily visits with the prison chaplain. On Wednesday, he will order his last meal.

West is scheduled to die for the 1986 murders of a woman and her 15-year-old daughter in their Union County, Tennessee, home.

Wanda Romines, 51, and Sheila Romines, were both stabbed to death, their hands bound behind their backs.

Sheila had been stabbed 17 times in the stomach. At trial, a forensic pathologist said 14 of those stab wounds were consistent with “torture-type cuts.”

West also was convicted of raping Sheila before she died.

West’s defense team argued he was present during the killings but that a 17-year-old co-defendant, who worked with him at a local McDonald’s restaurant and attended high school with Sheila, actually committed the crimes.

West’s co-defendant pinned the blame on him. West was convicted in 1987 of first-degree murder, aggravated rape and aggravated kidnapping.

The co-defendant also was convicted and imprisoned, but he was not eligible for the death penalty because he was a minor at the time of the crime.

West has had multiple execution dates that were delayed during his 32 years on death row.

West’s legal team sent Lee a clemency request that argued severe abuse during his childhood doomed his path and should justify mercy.

Source: tennessean.com, Mariah Timms, August 13, 2019


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Tennessee, USA
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