this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2024
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Summary

Vietnam’s High People’s Court upheld the death sentence for real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, convicted of embezzlement and bribery in a record $12 billion fraud case.

Lan can avoid execution by returning $9 billion (three-quarters of the stolen funds), potentially reducing her sentence to life imprisonment.

Her crimes caused widespread economic harm, including a bank run and $24 billion in government intervention to stabilize the financial system.

Lan has admitted guilt but prosecutors deemed her actions unprecedentedly damaging. She retains limited legal recourse through retrial procedures.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

My personal take on the death penalty is a bit more nuanced than most people’s, in that I support it for desk-perpetrators who commit crimes against international humanitarian law (crimes against humanity, starting a war of aggression, …) or dismantle/overthrow democracies. Desk perpetrator here means that the person cannot just participate in physical action but has to be a decision maker using institutional power. This should ideally be handed out by the ICC and no other court.

If I use this model, it tells me that the death penalty here is not justified: I’m not convinced that the bank she led had enough power to qualify as giving her sufficient institutional power to qualify and even if it did, theft and bribery are not crimes against humanity.

But yeah, I’m not going to cry if they go through with it anyways.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This should ideally be handed out by the ICC and no other court.

The main problem with any type of capital punishment is that it relies on an unbiased court system with reaching powers. The ICC has a pretty well established history of really only being able to prosecute criminals from impoverished nations.

If the ICC did execute war criminals, it would be an "international" court that almost exclusively executed people of color.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

Obviously I believe that the rome statute needs to be signifiantly extended and the ICC should for starters receive flat out universal jurisdiction: A big reason for why so few western people have been charged at it (though: Netanjahu and Puttler are now on the list!) is that a lot of the stuff that could be charged at it happened between nations that were not members of the ICC, meaning that it lacked jurisdiction. Now obviously all the responsible government-members of the “coalition of the willing” should be charged for the crime of aggression, and it is extremely disappointing that they aren’t, but since then the fact of the matter is that most of the rich states that are members have reasonably functional criminal justice systems and largely refrained from severe enough crimes that they would fall under ICC-jurisdiction.

Also: Even today you can also turn it around and say that it first and foremost gives justice to victims of color. Which is arguably much more important than the skin-color distribution of the genocidal trash that the convict! On that note, it bears mentioning that there is no right to get away with crimes just because others do!

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Do they offer this deal to regular, desperate thieves or just billionaires?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Do you mean the deal to avoid the death penalty in favor of life imprisonment, or a reduced sentence for returning the stolen goods?

If it is the former, I kinda doubt that a normal thief is looking at the death penalty. If it is the latter, I wouldn't see a reason that they wouldn't. Even in the capital of cruel and unusual punishments, Saudi Arabia, followed closely by the US, they don't deny a lesser sentence when restitution is an option.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (11 children)

This thread in a nutshell:

I'm against the death penalty, but/except/unless...

Well, then you're not against it, are you? People who are pro death penalty also have their limits from which point forward they believe death penalty to be justifiable. If you have an exception, you are pro-death penalty.

And to all the "revolutionaries" in these comments:

My Disillusionment in Russia, by Emma Goldman (Afterword):

There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another. (...) All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently the aims and means become identical. (...) Psychologically and socially the means necessarily influence and alter the aims. (...)

No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSES to be achieved. (...) It is the herald of NEW VALUES, ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and of man to society. It is not a mere reformer, patching up some social evils; not a mere changer of forms and institutions; not only a re-distributor of social well-being. It is all that, yet more, much more. (...)

To-day is the parent of to-morrow. The present casts its shadow far into the future. That is the law of life, individual and social. Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society. The means used to prepare the future become its cornerstone.

If you are a leftist that imagines/wishes a future with no government oppression, sponsored killing, and violence; and if you claim to be pro rehabilitation instead of punishment, you should not be celebrating capital punishment.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

If only all "tycoons" could face execution...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I dont get it. If you kill them you get the money anyway, right?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

Common Vietnam w

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

Infinity Pool comes to mind.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Mamma, what did you bring me to save me from the gallows pole?

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