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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.

4th Tennessee death row inmate selects electric chair

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Electric chair
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee death row inmate on Thursday selected electrocution for his upcoming execution, a move that would make him the fourth person in the state to choose that method over lethal injection since last year.

A spokeswoman with the Department of Correction confirmed that Lee Hall, formerly known as Leroy Hall Jr., requested the electric chair for his scheduled Dec. 5 execution.

In Tennessee, the state’s primary execution method is lethal injection but inmates can choose electrocution if they were convicted of crimes before January 1999.

Nationally, electrocution is a rarely-used option — partially due to it being legal in only six states. However, it’s a method that has been requested by three out of the five past death row inmates since Tennessee started resuming executions in August 2018.

Outside of Tennessee, the last time the electric chair was used in an execution was in 2013 in Virginia. 

Courts in Georgia and Nebraska have declared the electric chair unconstitutional and the U.S. Supreme Court has never fully considered its constitutionality.

Hall was convicted of killing Traci Crozier in 1991 in Chattanooga. He set her car on fire while she was still inside. 

According to court documents, Crozier received burns to more than 90% of her body and died several hours later in the hospital.

Hall’s attorneys are currently fighting to block the execution date.

Tennessee performed three executions last year. It was second only to Texas, which carried out 13.

Most states have been moving away from the death penalty, but Tennessee’s attorney general has requested to schedule executions for nine death-row prisoners and restore a 10th inmate’s death sentence. Another execution has been scheduled for 2020.

Most recently, Tennessee put 56-year-old Stephen West to death by electric chair in August. 

West was convicted of the 1986 kidnappings and stabbing deaths of a mother and her 15-year-old daughter. He also was convicted of raping the teen.

Source: The Associated Press, Staff, November 7, 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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