Hung Thanh Le
Case Overview
Letters Asking For Clemency
News
Case Overview
Hung Thanh Le, a Vietnamese citizen, was convicted of first degree murder in Oklahoma and sentenced to death. Le and Hai Nguyen each fled Vietnam as young men and met in a refugee camp in Thailand. Each made his way to the United States where, by 1992, Le was a machinist in Cleveland while Nguyen owned a beauty shop in Oklahoma City. In July 1992, Le visited Nguyen, his wife Thuy, and their daughter Carolyn. Le stopped for a brief visit early in November 1992, then arrived by taxi around 9:30 p.m. on Monday, November 9, 1992. He spent the night. The following day the beauty shop was closed; the Nguyens loaned Le $200 and they went shopping. On Wednesday Nguyen cut Le's hair, then Le returned to the empty house, where he packed up the Nguyen's stereo and karaoke equipment and shipped it to Cleveland. The Nguyens suspected Le had stolen their property but did not confront him.
Thursday, November 12, Carolyn went to school. Nguyen sat on the couch watching television. Le attacked Mr. Nguyen with a metal bar and Mrs. Nguyen with a butcher knife. During the attack Le told the Nguyens he had been paid $20,000 to kill them and told Mrs. Nguyen he would stop if she wrote him a check for $20,000. Mrs. Nguyen ran out the back door. She saw an EMSA ambulance which had just arrived, and begged the attendants to go inside and save her husband. The attendants treated Mrs. Nguyen for knife wounds to her hands and head. While waiting for police, they saw Le leave the house and drive off in the Nguyen's car. When attendants reached Mr. Nguyen he was still conscious, laying in a large pool of blood. He told them he was dying, asked them to help him, and asked about Mrs. Nguyen. Mr. Nguyen went into arrest in the ambulance and died of blood loss. He had been stabbed many times.
Le was apprehended the next day at the airport. He admitted stabbing Mr. Nguyen but insisted he had not intended to kill him. Le told police he knew about the money in the safe deposit box and came to Oklahoma City to rob the Nguyens. He said he intended to hit Nguyen and "put him to sleep" so he could get the safe deposit box key. When Nguyen remained conscious and grabbed the bar, Le said he feared for his life and got the knives to defend himself. He admitted he told Mrs. Nguyen he had been paid $20,000 to kill them but said that was a lie. During the second stage of trial Le testified that in July, 1992, he gave Mr. Nguyen $10,000 to start a joint business; after his family came in September he needed the money but Mr. Nguyen refused to return it so he came to Oklahoma City to get it back. Le did not tell the police about $10,000 or a business deal, although he did tell them he knew Mr. Nguyen had $10,000. Thuy testified there were no plans for a joint business and Le never gave them any money.
When Le was arrested, he did not receive his rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) Article 36. Partially based on this violation, the Oklahoma pardons board unanimously voted to recommend that Governor Brad Henry commute Le's death sentence, but on January 28, 2004 the Henry denied clemency. However, on the day of Le’s scheduled execution, Henry granted a stay of execution to Le after receiving an official request for a delay from the government of Vietnam. Henry set a new March 23 execution date for Le.
Letters Asking for Clemency
- December 4, 2004 - Government of Switzerland - letter asking for clemency, signed by Bénédict de Cerjat, the Deputy Chief of Mission on behalf of the Ambassador of Switzerland.
- December 4, 2003 - The European Union has issued a demarche asking Governor Henry to commute the sentence of Hung Thanh Le.
- December 4, 2003 - The European Union has issued a demarche asking the Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute the sentence of Hung Thanh Le.
News
Vietnamese refugee put to death for 1992 murder
In McAlester, after several attempts to save the life of convicted
murderer Hung Thanh Le, the Vietnamese refugee was executed at the
Oklahoma State Penitentiary on Tuesday.
Le, 37, was put to death by lethal injection at 6:04 p.m. for the 1992
stabbing death of Oklahoma City beauty salon owner Hai Nguyen.
Attorneys for Le were pursuing legal appeals Tuesday, but the Oklahoma
Criminal Court of Criminal Appeals rejected a request to stay the
execution. Le had no other appeals pending.
Death penalty opponents rallied at the Capitol Tuesday asking Gov. Brad
Henry to give Le clemency.
Le's attorney, Lanita Henricksen, had argued that Le was denied access to
assistance from the Vietnamese consulate, as guaranteed by the Geneva
Convention.
Vietnam and the United States did not have diplomatic relations when Le
was arrested for the murder in November of 1992. The 2 countries resumed
relations in July 1995. Le was convicted in September 1995.
Tuesday was his 3rd execution date.
Le had been scheduled to die Feb. 26, but officials from the Vietnamese
Embassy asked Henry to delay the execution so the embassy could have time
to review the case.
His 1st execution date in January was delayed so Henry could review the
case after the Pardon and Parole Board unanimously recommended clemency
for Le. Henry later rejected that request.
Le ate his last meal before he was strapped to a gurney and given a lethal
mixture of drugs. Le confessed to killing Nguyen, 34, the night he was
arrested. Le becomes the 4th condemned inmate executed in Oklahoma this
year, and the 73rd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in
1990.
(sources: Associated Press) - March 23, 2004
Le Receives a Stay of Execution
Gov. Brad Henry granted a delay of the execution of Hung Thanh Le on
Thursday.
Le, a refugee from Vietnam, was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6
p.m. Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary for the murder of Hai
Nguyen in 1992. Henry set a new March 23 execution date for Le.
Henry granted the stay late Thursday afternoon after receiving an official
request for a delay from the government of Vietnam. Officials with the
Vietnamese embassy in Washington, DC requested additional time to review
the case file of Le.
Gov. Henry said the stay will allow Vietnamese officials ample time to
review the case file and make any appeals through the judicial system.
An earlier bid to save his life failed when the U.S. Supreme Court refused
to stop his execution.
Le was convicted of murder in 1995 for killing Nguyen with a meat cleaver
and kitchen knife while a guest in Nguyen's Oklahoma City home.
The state's Pardon and Parole Board had recommended clemency for Le in an
unusual unanimous vote.
Religious leaders and community groups rallied at the Capitol on Wednesday
against Le's scheduled execution and urged Gov. Brad Henry to rethink his
decision to deny an unanimous recommendation of clemency.
As Le prepared to eat his final meal, death penalty opponents protested
the planned execution in front of the prison gates. Le confessed to
killing Nguyen the night he was arrested, saying the 2 had argued about
money and an unrealized business proposal before the murder.
(source: The Oklahoman)
Henry rejects clemency request for Vietnamese man
Gov. Brad Henry denied clemency Wednesday for a Vietnamese national
convicted of killing a man with a meat cleaver and kitchen knife.
Henry granted a stay last month for Hung Thanh Le, halting his scheduled
Jan. 6 execution, because he had not had time to review the case.
In an executive order Wednesday, Henry said he had reviewed arguments and
evidence in Le's case and met with Le's attorney before deciding to deny
clemency for Le.
The Oklahoma attorney general's office said late Wednesday it was
requesting a new execution date of Feb. 10 for Le, said Jennifer Miller,
chief of criminal appeals. According to a state statute, the execution
must be scheduled within 30 days of the date the stay is removed.
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted unanimously Dec. 9 in favor of
clemency for Le, whose attorney had argued the man did not have access to
legal help from his embassy after being arrested on an accusation of
murder.
Le's attorney also raised the possibility that Le's original lawyers
didn't consider post traumatic stress disorder as a possible defense.
Le was convicted in 1995 killing Hai Hong Nguyen, a man he met while at a
refugee camp in Vietnam.
(source: Associated Press)
Oklahoma Grants Stay of Vietnamese Man's Execution
Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry granted a 30-day stay of execution to a
Vietnamese national on Wednesday so that he will have time to consider a
pardon board recommendation that the sentence be commuted.
Hung Thanh Le, 34, was scheduled to be put to death on Jan. 6 for the 1992
slaying of fellow Vietnamese refugee Hai Hong Nguyen over a $10,000
business deal gone bad.
The state's Pardon and Parole Board voted a week ago to recommend
commuting Le's sentence on the grounds that Le was not notified under
international law that he could report his case to his consulate or
embassy.
If his death sentence is commuted, Le will most likely be sentenced to
life in prison.
Henry said in a statement he plans to personally interview both
prosecution and defense attorneys in the case as well as review evidence
presented to the pardon board.
"I want this case to go through the same deliberative process as previous
clemency recommendations, and the only way to do that is by ordering a
temporary stay," Henry said.
Le was convicted for the 1992 beating and stabbing death of Nguyen after
the 2 argued over $10,000, which Le had given Nguyen for a business
partnership. Le hit Nguyen with a metal bar and stabbed him with a butcher
knife, according to evidence presented in court.
(source: Reuters)
Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Paroles recommends clemency
A Vietnamese national facing a January execution should be spared,
Oklahoma's Pardon and Parole Board decided Tuesday.
Hung Thanh Le's attorney sought clemency from the board, saying the man
didn't get access to legal help from his embassy after being arrested on
an accusation of murder.
The attorney also raised the possibility Le's original lawyers didn't
consider post traumatic stress disorder as a possible defense.
Jurors took only 37 minutes after getting the case in 1995 to convict Le
of using a kitchen knife and meat cleaver to kill Hai Hong Nguyen in his
home.
Both men had been together in a refugee camp in their native Vietnam at
one time.
Pardon and Parole Board members voted unanimously, with chairman Patrick
Morgan abstaining because he was an Oklahoma County prosecutor at the time
of the case, to recommend clemency to Gov. Brad Henry.
(source: The Oklahoman)
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