The Felonious Five Strike Again

[marmar]

via truthdig:




No Stay From SCOTUS for Mexican on Death Row
Posted on Jul 7, 2011


The four justices (guess which ones?) who were hoping to hold off the execution of Humberto Leal Garcia Jr., a Mexican citizen on death row in Texas, didn’t get their wish Thursday. Leal was executed that evening.

The argument in favor of the delay, supported by the Obama administration, had to do with Leal and other Mexican citizens in U.S. prisons potentially being unaware of the full extent of their rights according to the Vienna Convention. This contention may serve others in similar positions but came too late to change Leal’s fate. —KA

The New York Times:

The administration had asked the court to delay the execution so that Congress might consider recently introduced legislation that would provide fresh hearings on whether the rights of Mr. Leal and about 50 other Mexican citizens on death row in the United States had been violated.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague found that the inmates had been denied their rights under the Vienna Convention. The convention requires that foreigners detained abroad be told they may contact consular officials.

In 2008, the Supreme Court acknowledged that the international court’s ruling was binding but said that the president acting alone could not compel states to comply with it. Congress also had to act, the court said.

Read more

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/no_stay_from_scotus_for_mexican_on_death_row_20110707/

[aikoaiko]

1. In my reading of this issue, I still cannot determine if notifying the other country is required.

:shrug:

[meegbear]

2. ...

<snip>

Before Leal Garcia's trial, Texas authorities failed to inform him of his right to speak with officers from the Mexican consulate and failed to inform the consulate that a Mexican national had been arrested. Both of those failures violated a 1963 treaty signed by the U.S. Indeed, the consular access provision was added to the treaty at the insistence of the United States.

The U.S. relies on the treaty to secure legal help and often to win release of Americans imprisoned abroad, some in countries such as Iran, Libya and Syria. Last year alone the U.S. invoked the treaty for 3,500 Americans imprisoned in other countries.

In Leal Garcia's case, Mexico said that if it had known of his arrest, it could have provided sufficient legal help and information about his abusive childhood that the death penalty might well have been averted.

In 2008, in a similar case brought by the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled that the consular access treaty does not bind state courts unless Congress, in addition to its ratification of the treaty, enacts an enforcement law. The Obama administration last month endorsed such a law and last week asked the Supreme Court to stay the Leal Garcia execution to allow it time to win passage of the proposed statute.

<snip>

http://app1.kuhf.org/articles/npr1310090561-Texas-Executes-Mexican-After-Court-Declines-Action.html