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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.

South Dakota Sees Funding Increase Amid Death Penalty Cases

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2 high-profile death penalty cases in western South Dakota have led to large increases in funding for a county courthouse and public defender's office.

Defending 2 men facing the possibility of the death penalty in a murder case will cost a western South Dakota county's budget as much as $1 million more in 2018.

Pennington County commissioners granted the request made by the courthouse and public defenders last month for more than $500,000 increases each to their 2018 budgets. 

A large portion of those will go toward defending two men facing the death penalty on 1st-degree murder charges, the Rapid City Journal reported .

Jonathon Klinetobe, 28, and Richard Hirth, 36, have been charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in the disappearance and death of Jessica Rehfeld, 22, in 2015. 

Klinetobe is represented by 3 appointed lawyers, 2 from the county public defender's office and 1 private attorney. Hirth has 2 court-appointed private lawyers.

The law requires defendants who can't afford to hire a lawyer be appointed one by the court. 

Death penalty cases require at least 2 lawyers, but defendants are responsible for repaying the county the cost of their legal defense.

Death penalty cases are "exceedingly expensive" and taxpayers can reasonably expect to shoulder up to $1 million for the prosecution and defense such a case, said Eric Whitcher, director of the county public defender's office.

"The people who are available to handle those cases are highly specialized, and they cost significant funds," he said, including criminal investigators, lab analysts, psychiatrists, crime scene analysts and pathologists.

Klinetobe and Hirth have been detained at the county jail since May 2016. 

It's unclear when they will go to trial, but their cases will likely again come under the spotlight in budget hearings for 2019 if they aren't tried before then.

Source: Associated Press, October 22, 2017


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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: South Dakota, USA
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