Virginia Supreme Court Issues Rare Order
Permits death penalty in case involving
VIRGINIA BEACH, VA , January 20, 2006 — On Thursday, Jan. 19 the Supreme Court of Virginia intervened in a Fairfax County capital murder case, and overruled a judge who had ruled that a Vietnamese man could not be subjected to the death penalty because police violated his Vienna Convention rights by not informing him that he could contact his embassy.
Initially, the trial judge had prohibited the prosecutor from seeking the death penalty against Dinh Pham, citing provisions of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which was created to provide protections for people arrested in another country.
Pham, 34, of
At the request of the Commonwealth’s Attorney for
About L. Steven Emmert
Appellate lawyer L. Steven Emmert of
L. Steven Emmert contact
emmert@virginia-appeals.com , (757) 965-5000