China court hands down death sentence for executive convicted of embezzlement News
China court hands down death sentence for executive convicted of embezzlement

[JURIST] Li Rongxing, a former oilfield chief, has been sentenced to death in China after being convicted of taking bribes and embezzling over $4.6 million in the people's intermediate court in Tai'an [government website, in Chinese], newspapers in Beijing reported Monday. The former president of Shengli Oilfield Dynamic, a subsidiary of Sinopec [corporate website], was found guilty of stealing the money between 1994 and 2003 through a range of different operations, including inflating property prices.

Li was also convicted in May of accepting $4.8 million in gifts. Li's execution will be suspended for two years, indicating that it will likely be commuted to life imprisonment. The Chinese government has focused recently on cracking down on corrupt officials and launched a campaign to stop such corruption. Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Georgia became first US state to ban lynching

On December 20, 1893, Georgia became the first state in the Union to pass a law against lynching, making the act punishable by four years in prison. The statute was not particularly effective—read the text of the 1899 pamphlet Lynch Law in Georgia by anti-lynching activist Ida Wells-Barnett.