A billionaire in Vietnam has been sentenced to death for fraud. Is this a just sentence?

The death penalty should be abolished. So, no. Not a just sentence.

@ragingloli: “A billionaire in Vietnam has been sentenced to death for fraud. Is this a just sentence?”

Yes

(half joking. maybe)

As with most crime, there are varying degrees of the crime. Way back in the day we had Charles Keating and Michael Milken destroy the Savings and Loan business in the US. Milken got away with millions, had to pay a good chunk of it back and spent only 2 years in jail. Club Fed if I remember right. Yet their actions destroyed the lives of millions. Bernie Madoff ran a ponsi scheme for 20 years or so and defrauded people out of billions of dollars. He was sentenced to 150 years in jail. I guess the difference is the target audience. If you steal from the rich they want you to pay heavily. If you steal from the poor or make the government lose money on bailouts, it’s an easy sentence.

In the case you cited, her damage was basically the whole country. It was so out of control that yeah, the death penalty would be best. What else are you going to do with her? Turn her back out into the populace to continue her scams?

I personally think the penalty ought to fit the crime and white collar crime is usually more damaging than blue collar crime. I believe that in all cases where someone scams on this huge of a level (or the ones I mentioned), at a bare minimum, all their assets and all the assets of their family above and below on the family tree ought to be seized. Put the entire family out on the street. For the actual perpetrator, let them rot in jail for many years…and then turn them out onto the street. If you make it a bold enough statement that it is no longer going to be accepted, it will stop, or at least taper off significantly.

But fraud is a weird one. Look at what Trump went through? Accused of fraud because they say he overvalued his property to get a better loan. Yet the bank testified in his favor, they did their own valuations, they gave him the loan and he paid it off fully with the appropriate interest. So there was no victim. There was nothing. So the AG called it fraud, yet the affected parties argued against it and there was no one that lost out. Their own rules don’t support the case. Here is what is needed for fraud:

-A material misrepresentation or omission of fact
-Made by the defendant with knowledge of its falsity
-And intent to defraud
-Reasonable reliance by the plaintiff
-Resulting damage to the plaintiff (Source: New York law on Fraud/Fraud in the Inducement)

So basically a person has to knowingly and willfully try to take advantage of someone else, to that person’s detriment.

Because of that, saying that a given penalty for fraud should be given isn’t realistic. It should depend on the damage done by the fraud.

Their laws, their penalties.

Seems harsh, but apparently they take economic crimes more seriously than we do.

If the US took them seriously, Trump and half of the hedge fund owners in NYC would be dead.

To those communists it is just. Not sure if it is…in my view.

This reminds me of ( if I understand this correctly ) news of some Wall Street traders willfully risking and committing inside trading knowing that if they get caught they will simply end up in those light security prisons. For a few years supposedly.

Now if they get death sentences instead…

What @Caravanfan said, with the added sentiment that life in prison without parole IS a death sentence that I’m ok with.

The scale of her crimes was pretty egregious, and did affect the elite in the country. She chose her strategy poorly.