United States doesn't Honor Treaty by Killing Death Row Inmate (In TX of course)

pgabriel · Jul 8, 2011

The Supreme Court ruled against him. i believe even GWB was for honoring this treat, I don't get into the death penalty debate much but I wouldn't want to be in a foreign country and get in trouble and not be able to ask for help from the US.

link

WASHINGTON -- Only four of 123 foreigners who have been on death row in the United States in the past quarter-century were promptly told they could seek help from their consulates, death-penalty watchdog groups say. Such failures violate a treaty that also helps U.S. citizens abroad.

In the latest case, Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating issued a 30-day stay -- until next Monday -- to Gerardo Valdez, a Mexican-born killer who sat on death row for more than a decade before his consulate learned of his fate.

"We believe Mr. Valdez has to pay for what he did," said Miguel Monterubio, a Mexican Embassy spokesman. But he added: "Had we known about this, we would have had a better defense for him, and we are sure that he would not have been sentenced to death."

Foreigners detained by U.S. authorities must be told "without delay" that they can seek consulate help, according to the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Death-penalty groups say authorities often do not tell defendants for months, even years.

At least 97 foreigners currently await execution in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Since 1976, at least 15 have been executed; three were freed after appeals or retrials and eight had their death sentences overturned on appeal, said Amnesty International's Mark Warren.

The treaty also protects the roughly 2,500 Americans detained abroad each year.

The United States signed the Vienna agreement mainly to protect its citizens in eastern Europe, said international law professor John Quigley of Ohio State University.

"The United States was fairly aggressive about getting strong protections written into it," he said. "Now it's being used mostly against the United States because many other countries have implemented it to a much greater degree."

When a U.S. spy plane made an emergency landing on a Chinese island earlier this year, President Bush cited the Vienna treaty when demanding U.S. consular visits to the plane's crew.

Five months earlier, when Bush was still governor of Texas, European diplomats asked him to stop the execution of Miguel Flores. They argued that the Mexican-born convicted murderer, who died by injection in November, was not granted consular rights until he appealed his death sentence.

Last month, the International Court of Justice ruled that the United States violated the Vienna treaty in the case of Karl and Walter LaGrand, two German brothers executed in 1999. The LaGrands were convicted of murdering a bank manager during a botched 1982 robbery in Arizona. A decade passed before the German Consulate learned of the case.

The United States has promised better compliance and has received high marks for improvement. During the past 3 1/2 years, the State Department has overseen training programs in 34 cities and mailed more than 93,000 brochures and 400,000 pocket cards to educate police forces about the treaty and help avoid future violations.

Legal and human rights groups say ignorance is to blame for a lack of U.S. compliance with the treaty.

"It's foreign law. Who reads international treaties?" said Richard Dieter, the Death Penalty Information Center's executive director.

Read more:
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Rocketman95 · Jul 8, 2011

very disturbing.

bobrek · Jul 8, 2011

As an aside, the newspaper article was written in 2001. Also, as an aside, clicking on the blog article link caused a potentially dangerous popup to be displayed.

Cannonball · Jul 8, 2011

bobrek said: ↑

As an aside, the newspaper article was written in 2001. Also, as an aside, clicking on the blog article link caused a potentially dangerous popup to be displayed.
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Here's the Chronicle article on the recent execution.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Texas executed a Mexican citizen Thursday for the rape-slaying of a teenager after he and the White House pleaded in vain for a Supreme Court stay, saying he was denied help from his home country that could have helped him avoid the death penalty.

In his last minutes, Humberto Leal repeatedly said he was sorry and accepted responsibility.

"I have hurt a lot of people. ... I take full blame for everything. I am sorry for what I did," he said in the death chamber.

"One more thing," he said as the drugs began taking effect. Then he shouted twice, "Viva Mexico!"

"Ready warden," he said. "Let's get this show on the road."

He grunted, snored several times and appeared to go to sleep, then stopped all breathing movement. The 38-year-old mechanic was pronounced dead at 6:21 p.m., 10 minutes after the lethal drugs began flowing into his arms.

After his execution, relatives of Leal who had gathered in Guadalupe, Mexico, burned a T-shirt with an image of the American flag in protest. Leal's uncle Alberto Rodriguez criticized the U.S. justice system and the Mexican government and said, "There is a God who makes us all pay."

Leal was sentenced to death for the 1994 murder of 16-year-old Adria Sauceda, whose brutalized nude body was found hours after he left a San Antonio street party with her. She was bludgeoned with a piece of 30- to 40-pound chunk of asphalt.

Leal was just a toddler when he and his family moved to the U.S. from Monterrey, Mexico, but his citizenship became a key element of his attorneys' efforts to win a stay. They said police never told him following his arrest that he could seek legal assistance from the Mexican government under an international treaty.

Mexico, the Obama administration and others had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to delay Leal's execution so Congress could consider a law that would require court reviews in cases where condemned foreign nationals did not receive help from their consulates. They said the case could affect not only foreigners in the U.S. but Americans detained in other countries.

The court rejected the request 5-4. Its five more conservative justices doubted that executing Leal would cause grave international consequences, and doubted "that it is ever appropriate to stay a lower court judgment in light of unenacted legislation."

"Our task is to rule on what the law is, not what it might eventually be," the majority said.

The court's four liberal-leaning justices said they would have granted the stay.

Leal's attorney Sandra L. Babcock said that with consular help her client could have shown that he was not guilty. But she added, "This case was not just about one Mexican national on death row in Texas. The execution of Mr. Leal violates the United States' treaty commitments, threatens the nation's foreign policy interests, and undermines the safety of all Americans abroad."

Prosecutors, however, said Congress was unlikely to pass the legislation sought and that Leal's appeals were simply an attempt to evade justice for a gruesome murder.

Mexico's foreign ministry said in a statement that the government condemned Leal's execution and sent a note of protest to the U.S. State Department. The ministry also said Mexican ambassador Arturo Sarukhan attempted to contact Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who refused to speak on the phone.

The governor's office declined to comment on the execution Thursday.

Leal's argument that he should have received consular legal aid that could have helped his case was not new. Texas, the nation's most active death penalty state, has executed other condemned foreign nationals who raised similar challenges, most recently in 2008.

Leal's appeals, however, focused on legislation introduced last month in the U.S. Senate by Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy. Leahy's measure would bring the U.S. into compliance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations provision regarding the arrests of foreign nationals, and ensure court reviews for condemned foreigners to determine if a lack of consular help made a significant difference in the outcome of their cases.

"Americans detained overseas rely on their access to U.S. consulates every day," Leahy said after the Supreme Court decision was announced. "If we expect other countries to abide by the treaties they join, the United States must also honor its obligations."

The Obama administration took the unusual step of intervening in a state murder case last week when Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. joined Leal's appeal, asking the high court to halt the execution and give Congress at least six months to consider Leahy's bill.

The Mexican government and other diplomats also contended that the execution should be delayed so Leal's case could be thoroughly reviewed. Some also warned his execution would violate the treaty provision and could endanger Americans in countries that deny them consular help.

Measures similar to Leahy's have failed at least twice in recent congressional sessions. The Texas Attorney General's office, opposing the appeals, pointed to those failures in its Supreme Court arguments and said "legislative relief was not likely to be forthcoming."

Stephen Hoffman, an assistant attorney general, also said evidence pointing to Leal's guilt is strong.

"At this point, it is clear that Leal is attempting to avoid execution by overwhelming the state and the courts with as many meritless lawsuits and motions as humanly possible," Hoffman said.

Prosecutors said Sauceda was drunk and high on cocaine the night she was killed, and that Leal offered to take her home. Witnesses said Leal drove off with her around 5 a.m. Some partygoers found her brutalized nude body later that morning and called police.

There was evidence Sauceda had been bitten, strangled and raped. A large stick that had a screw protruding from it was left in her body.

A witness testified that Leal's brother appeared at the party, agitated that Leal had arrived home bloody and saying he had killed a girl.

In his first statement to police, Leal said Sauceda bolted from his car and ran off. After he was told his brother had given detectives a statement, he changed his story, saying Sauceda attacked him and fell to the ground after he fought back. He said when he couldn't wake her and saw bubbles in her nose, he got scared and went home.

Testifying during his trial's punishment phase, Leal acknowledged being intoxicated and doing wrong but said he wasn't responsible for what prosecutors alleged. A psychiatrist testified Leal suffered from alcohol dependence and pathological intoxication.

Sauceda's mother, Rachel Terry, told San Antonio television station KSAT her family already had suffered too long.

"A technicality doesn't give anyone a right to come to this country and rape, torture and murder anyone," she said.

In 2005, President George W. Bush agreed with an International Court of Justice ruling that Leal and 50 other Mexican-born inmates nationwide should be entitled to new hearings in U.S. courts to determine if their consular rights were violated. The Supreme Court later overruled Bush.

___

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7644159.html#ixzz1RWrwzSNT
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It's not about whether the guy deserved to be executed or not. It's about us honoring a treaty that we would expect and hope to be honored if we were ever detained abroad.

pgabriel · Jul 8, 2011

bobrek said: ↑

As an aside, the newspaper article was written in 2001. Also, as an aside, clicking on the blog article link caused a potentially dangerous popup to be displayed.
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sorry, didn't mean to include site at bottom. i'll try to find another link, all the articles i could find were actually in favor of killing the guy, i was trying to find something neutral

pgabriel · Jul 8, 2011

okay i after reading the chron article, leal was a toddler when he came over here. i think that's a technicality.

bobrek · Jul 8, 2011

pgabriel said: ↑

sorry, didn't mean to include site at bottom. i'll try to find another link, all the articles i could find were actually in favor of killing the guy, i was trying to find something neutral
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It could have been an ad from the blog site rather than the blog itself, but one of those types of "you have been infected..." windows popped up. I do what I always do in that situation, ctrl-alt-del, start task manager, kill all IE processes, run quick virus scan.

As to the story, yes we should have honored the treaty. And this:

"Legal and human rights groups say ignorance is to blame for a lack of U.S. compliance with the treaty."

is a lame excuse.

pgabriel · Jul 8, 2011

rachel maddow was talking about this last night and she also brought up rick perry's rush to kill the guy accused of setting his house on fire with the kids in there.

she was saying that rick perry seems to be a viable option for the 2012 gop nomination, i think so also. her reasoning on that was that bauchmann is a looney and they don't want romney which i agree with. she was saying that the death penalty is never an issue but it may be with rick perry. in the willingham case she brought up the fact that perry replaced someone reviewing the case to speed through the execution which is disucessed in the thread i linked

DonkeyMagic · Jul 8, 2011

Northside Storm · Jul 8, 2011

United States following international law...

lol

rocketsjudoka · Jul 8, 2011

One thing I don't get about things like the Leal case is that the reasoning I heard from Perry's office was that they claimed that Texas as a state isn't bound by international law yet the Supremacy Clause clearly says that States are bound by treaties. I am wondering if based on that wouldn't Leal's relatives in Mexico or even the government of Mexico be able to sue Perry and the state of Texas for violating the treaty?

CrazyDave · Jul 8, 2011

Bad decision by Rick, not good for US or Texas, but I'm not going to waste my time feeling badly for a murdering rapist, the lawyer who's angry they didn't have a better chance to prove the innocence of a man who's admitted his crimes... who distraught they didn't get a consular visit for a kid who's been here for 30+ years, or even for the flag burning family that seems to have plenty of outrage about him not getting a consular visit, but not a mention of sympathy for the victim or her family. Perhaps that was just editing. Perhaps not.

Bad move by Rick, but on the list of things he's done, not at the top, for me. If it means that an American won't get a consular visit upon committing the most heinous crimes imaginable, I can live with that. Obviously the implications are larger, but ... I guess I'm just not enough of a stickler for the details when you're trying to help out a murderer / rapist who's trying to claim some sort of defense based around the Vienna Treaty for a guy commits his crimes in a country that he's been in for 30+ years.

I just can't get on the "He should have had a better chance" bandwagon. Not for this guy. Obviously there are implications that could be abused if this is used an example by a country who wants to hold a less guilty person without certain rights provided under this treaty, but I'm guessing there's a better example of how this treaty has been violated, by the US and others, than this guy.

Dude lives here all that time and his last words are viva mexico?

rocketsjudoka · Jul 8, 2011

CrazyDave said: ↑

Bad decision by Rick, not good for US or Texas, but I'm not going to waste my time feeling badly for a murdering rapist, the lawyer who's angry they didn't have a better chance to prove the innocence of a man who's admitted his crimes and is who distraught they didn't get a consular visit for a kid who's been here for 30+ years, or even for the flag burning family that seems to have plenty of outrage about him not getting a consular visit, but not a mention of sympathy for the victim or her family. Perhaps that was just editing. Perhaps not.

Bad move by Rick, but on the list of things he's done, not at the top, for me. If it means that an American won't get a consular visit upon committing the most heinous crimes imaginable, I can live with that. Obviously the implications are larger, but ... I guess I'm just not enough of a stickler for the details when you're trying to help out a murderer / rapist who's trying to claim some sort of defense based around the Vienna Treaty for a guy commits his crimes in a country that he's been in for 30+ years.

I just can't get on the "He should have had a better chance" bandwagon. Not for this guy. Obviously there are implications that could be abused if this is used an example by a country who wants to hold a less guilty person without certain rights, but I'm guessing there's a better example of how this treaty has been violated, by the US and others, than this guy.

Dude lives here all that time and his last words are viva mexico?
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Except that we are a nation of laws and personal feelings about this guy aside shouldn't the law be followed?

pgabriel · Jul 8, 2011

rocketsjudoka said: ↑

Except that we are a nation of laws and personal feelings about this guy aside shouldn't the law be followed?
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yeah, but i think crazydave makes a pretty good argument on the guy being here 30 years. i think that should be factored, he's basically an american with no legal status. had his parents come over five years earlier he'd be a citizen.

rocketsjudoka · Jul 8, 2011

pgabriel said: ↑

yeah, but i think crazydave makes a pretty good argument on the guy being here 30 years. i think that should be factored, he's basically an american with no legal status. had his parents come over five years earlier he'd be a citizen.
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As long as he is still a Mexican national and never officially gave up that status then the treaty should still apply. I mean if an American lives in another country for 30 years but never gives up his citizenship does that mean that his status should be called to question?

Joshfast · Jul 8, 2011

CrazyDave said: ↑

Dude lives here all that time and his last words are viva mexico?
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He will probably end up as some Mexican folk hero now.

pgabriel · Jul 8, 2011

rocketsjudoka said: ↑

As long as he is still a Mexican national and never officially gave up that status then the treaty should still apply. I mean if an American lives in another country for 30 years but never gives up his citizenship does that mean that his status should be called to question?
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the spirit of the law vs the letter of the law

the guy lives here, he knows his rights. that's the point. i don't think the law is there to protect people from being mistreated. i think its there for people to have an understanding or help because they are in a foreign country and not used to foreign law. the treaty doesn't give you exemption, it gives you help. can you honestly say that a guy who basically grew up here his entire life needs help because he came from mexico when he was three years old.

i mean yeah, technically he deserves the help, in reality he probably doesn't need it and understood everything up to a point as much as education allowed him to understand everything happening to him

rocketsjudoka · Jul 8, 2011

pgabriel said: ↑

the spirit of the law vs the letter of the law

the guy lives here, he knows his rights. that's the point. i don't think the law is there to protect people from being mistreated. i think its there for people to have an understanding or help because they are in a foreign country and not used to foreign law. the treaty doesn't give you exemption, it gives you help. can you honestly say that a guy who basically grew up here his entire life needs help because he came from mexico when he was three years old.
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The letter of the law though is all that matters in regard to treaty obligations. Whether this meets the spirit should be immaterial in whether TX should have followed the letter.

i mean yeah, technically he deserves the help, in reality he probably doesn't need it and understood everything up to a point as much as education allowed him to understand everything happening to him
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Maybe he needed that help, maybe he didn't. My understanding of the law and treaties is that it wasn't for the State of Texas to unilaterally decide he didn't and violate the treaty.

I think you and Crazydave are looking too much at Leal rather than the law itself.

pgabriel · Jul 8, 2011

i guess there is no harm in rick adhering to the law, as crazydave states even though the guy probably didn't need the help, its just stupid not to follow the law. the guy is gonna get killed anyway, what's the rush. i guess rick probably felt it would have ended up with him not getting killed but i don't think that's the purpose of the treaty.

QdoubleA · Jul 8, 2011

rocketsjudoka said: ↑

I think you and Crazydave are looking too much at Leal rather than the law itself.
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Screw the law. He's an admitted child rapist and murderer. He's less than an animal and we're all better off with him rotting in the ground.

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