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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. 

First Saudi execution after Ramadan pause

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Public execution in Saudi Arabia (file photo)
Public execution in Saudi Arabia (file photo)
Riyadh: Saudi Arabia carried out its first execution in five weeks on Thursday after a pause for Ramadan, beheading one of its citizens convicted of a double murder.

Sayir Al Rasheedi was found guilty of fatally shooting two Saudi brothers in a dispute, the official Saudi Press Agency reported, citing the interior ministry.

Authorities carried out the sentence against him in the Qassim region.

SPA had reported no executions during the month of Ramadan and the Eid Al Fitr holiday which followed.

The latest beheading brings to 103 the number of executions in the kingdom so far this year, a sharp increase on the 87 recorded during the whole of 2014, according to AFP tallies.

This year’s figure is still below the record 192 which human rights group Amnesty International said were carried out in 1995.

Human Rights Watch has accused Saudi authorities of waging a “campaign of death” by executing more people in the first six months of this year than in all of last year.

Echoing the concerns of other activists, the New York-based group said it has documented “due process violations” in Saudi Arabia’s judiciary that make it difficult for defendants to get fair trials even in capital cases.

Under the conservative kingdom’s strict Sharia legal code, drug trafficking, rape, murder, armed robbery, homosexuality and apostasy are all punishable by death.

The interior ministry has cited deterrence as a reason for carrying out the punishment.

Source: Agence France-Presse, July 24, 2015

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