The StandDown Texas Project

An Update From Nebraska

"Attorneys challenge state death penalty," is the Lincoln Journal Star report written by Nicholas Bergin.

The attorneys for a man convicted of murdering a Brazilian missionary family have asked an Omaha judge to rule the state’s death penalty law unconstitutional in a bid to save their client from being sentenced to die.

A jury convicted Jose Oliveira-Coutinho on Oct. 5 of three counts of first-degree murder and one count of theft in connection with the 2009 deaths of Vanderlei Szczepanik; his wife, Jacqueline; and their 7-year-old son, Christopher. The jury found aggravating circumstances existed, clearing the way for a three-judge panel to decide whether the crimes warrant execution.

A date for sentencing has not been set.

And:

Oliveira-Coutinho's attorneys, Todd Lancaster and Horacio Wheelock, on Tuesday filed a 25-page motion in Douglas County District Court listing nine grounds on which Nebraska’s execution law allegedly violates the U.S. and state constitutions. Most of their arguments already have been presented in Nebraska courts and failed to gain traction.

One of the less tested arguments in the motion is that use of the death penalty has declined to the extent that it now amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. In 1996 -- the high-water mark for the death penalty in the United States -- 315 people were sentenced to die by 31 states and the federal government. Last year, 78 people got the death sentence, a 75 percent decrease.

The motion also argues existing state statues are vague, allow arbitrary and discriminatory application of the death penalty, and fail to give defendants proper notice of how and when a sentence of death will be applied.

Nebraska switched its method of execution to lethal injection after a 2008 ruling by the state Supreme Court that the electric chair amounted to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

When it comes to lethal injection and deciding on the chemicals, procedures and policies for execution, the motion argues it should be the call of the Legislature, not prison officials.

The Arkansas Supreme Court last year ruled unconstitutional a law there that delegated the choice of lethal injection drugs to that state's Department of Corrections.

Earlier coverage of Nebraska lethal injection issues begins at the link; also available, coverage of Nebraska legislation.

Montana Clemency Review of Ronald Smith Remains on Hold

Canada.com posts, "Ronald Smith death-row clemency case not likely to be resolved until new governor takes over."  It's by Randy Boswell of Postmedia News.

Montana’s outgoing governor has given the clearest signal yet that he won’t be granting clemency to Canadian death-row inmate Ronald Smith during his final days in office, likely placing the Alberta-born killer’s fate in the hands of governor-elect Steve Bullock when he takes over the state’s top job next week.

It’s a situation that one of Smith’s lawyers describes as “uncharted waters” for Montana’s justice system, which has been dealing with Smith’s case for more than 30 years.

The 55-year-old Albertan is one of only two Canadians currently sentenced to death in the United States; the other, Newfoundland-born Robert Bolden, 48, is appealing his death sentence after being convicted in the 2002 killing of a St. Louis bank guard.

Responding to questions about the Smith case in recent days, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer told The Associated Press: “The recommendation to me was not to do anything.”

He added that he’s still “not saying one way or another” whether he might commute Smith’s death sentence before his gubernatorial term ends on Monday or endorse the recommendation made by Montana’s parole board earlier this year that the execution should proceed.

But Smith’s case “is not any more on the table at this point than anyone else’s,” Schweitzer added — apparently referring to unresolved issues concerning the legality of Montana’s lethal-injection system, which must be dealt with before the Canadian’s execution could be carried out anyway.

Schweitzer’s comments point to a hands-off approach that would leave the potentially explosive issue to his successor, Bullock, currently the state’s attorney general and nominally the Montana justice official who has been responsible for fighting Smith’s legal appeals in recent years to avoid execution.

Yet Bullock, a Democrat like Schweitzer, is not considered an ardent supporter of capital punishment, and his moderate views on the subject have sparked attacks in the past by Republican rivals intent on preserving the ultimate punishment in a state sharply split over the issue.

“We are waiting for Gov. Schweitzer to act on the clemency petition, and without his action then the issue shifts to the next governor,” Ronald Waterman, one of Smith’s three main lawyers, told Postmedia News this week. “But I don’t know that the clemency petition would automatically transfer over or whether a new petition would have to be presented before Gov. Bullock would be able to act on the petition. We are in uncharted waters here.”

"Baird seeks clemency for death row Canadian," is by Bill Graveland of the Canadian Press.  It's via the Province.

The Canadian government has sent a letter to Montana's governor requesting that he spare the life of death row inmate Ronald Smith.

The Dec. 10 letter from Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird to Montana's outgoing Gov. Brian Schweitzer is almost identical to one sent to the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole a year ago prior to the Alberta man's clemency hearing. It makes it clear that the Federal Court ordered the federal government to support Smith's case for clemency.

"The government of Canada requests that you grant clemency to Mr. Smith on humanitarian grounds," writes Baird. "The government of Canada does not sympathize with violent crime and this letter should not be construed as reflecting a judgment on Mr. Smith's conduct."

Smith has been on death row since admitting he murdered Thomas Running Rabbit and Harvey Madman Jr. near East Glacier, Mont., in 1982.

The Harper government initially refused to back Smith's calls for clemency, saying he was convicted in a democratic country. But the Federal Court ruled Ottawa must follow a long-standing practice of lobbying on behalf of Canadians sentenced to death in other countries.

Earlier coverage of Ronald Smith's case begins at the link.  Montana's lethal injection procedure was ruled unconstitutional last year.  Also, available is advance coverage of the state legislature, which meets this year.

Oklahoma Executes

Today's Oklahoman reports, "Oklahoma executes man for 1993 shootings."  It's written by Sean Murphy.

A death row inmate was executed Tuesday for the 1993 shooting deaths of an Oklahoma City couple.

George Ochoa, 38, was given an injection of lethal drugs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester. He was pronounced dead at 6:07 p.m.

And:

Ochoa lost a late attempt at having his execution postponed when the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied his request for a stay. A federal appeals court on Monday rejected arguments that Ochoa was mentally unfit to be executed and a challenge to the state’s procedure for determining sanity.

Prosecutors said there was little evidence to suggest a motive for the killing, but no doubt that Ochoa and his co-defendant, Osbaldo Torres, 37, were responsible.

Also:

Torres, a Mexican citizen, was also convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in the shootings, but his sentence was reduced by then-Gov. Brad Henry in 2004.

Henry imposed a sentence of life without parole after Mexican government officials raised concerns that Torres was not given a chance to speak with the Mexican consulate after being accused, as required by international conventions.

It was Oklahoma's sixth execution of 2012; the state's 102nd post-Furman execution since 1990.  To date, there have been 41 executions in American death penalty states this year; a total of 1,318 post-Furman executions since 1977.

Arizona is scheduled to execute Richard Stokley, today, as noted by the Arizona Republic.

Additional Coverage of Montana Lethal Injection Ruling

The order in Smith v. Montana is available in Adobe .pdf format.

"Judge rules Montana execution method unconstitutional," is the AP report filed by Matt Gouras.  It's via the Helena Independent Record.

A judge says Montana must change the way it executes prisoners after ruling that the current method is unconstitutional; giving a victory to death penalty foes that could be short-lived.  

The decision came in the case of Ronald Allen Smith, a Canadian citizen from Red Deer, Alberta, who is awaiting execution.  

The American Civil Liberties Union had filed the case in 2008, arguing that lethal injection protocol amounts to cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. and Montana constitutions.  

Helena District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock ruled Thursday that aspects of it fail to pass constitutional muster. 

He said the protocol doesn’t ensure qualified individuals are making key decisions, such as verifying that the inmate is unconscious and incapable of feeling pain before administration of the death drugs. Sherlock said the warden is charged with that decision, although there is no training requirement in place to ensure he can properly determine the inmate is unconscious.  

The judge said the job requirements for the setup officer are also lacking. And he pointed out there is inconsistency between what state law requires of an execution procedure, and what the Department of Corrections manual says.  

But the judge said needed changes can be easily made by the state — although it could require legislative changes if the state law on the method needs adjustments to comply with requirements. The Legislature meets again in January.  

State assistant attorney general C. Mark Fowler said his office is studying the opinion and deciding what options there are to modify the protocol. In the meantime, no executions are scheduled.

Reuters Legal posts, "Montana judge strikes down state execution method," by Laura Zuckerman.

A judge has struck down Montana's lethal injection procedure as a violation of the state constitution's protections against cruel and unusual punishment, effectively suspending executions in the state, officials said on Friday.

State District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock did not question the constitutionality of the death penalty in Montana, which has two inmates on death row and has executed three since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

But he ruled, in a written decision handed down on Thursday, that the state's three-drug execution procedure differed from a two-drug protocol spelled out in law, which he said "increases the likelihood of confusion and error in the process."

Sherlock also faulted a practice in Montana that allows a prison warden with no medical training or execution experience to determine a prisoner was unconscious before a fatal drug was administered.

He also found that the prison official setting up the execution process was not required to have experience with the intravenous procedure.

Sherlock said those concerns and the disparity between the protocol in state law and the one practiced by the Department of Corrections created "a substantial risk of serious harm." He also said the problems could easily be remedied by the Legislature and the state corrections department.

And:

The decision stemmed from a lawsuit brought in 2008 by the Montana American Civil Liberties Union and attorneys for death row inmate Ronald Allen Smith, a Canadian convicted of shooting and killing two people in Montana in 1982.

"Inmates Are ‘Architects of Their Own Doom,’ Says Judge Who Nixed Mont. Lethal Injection Process," by Debra Cassens Weiss for ABA Journal.

Judge Jeffrey Sherlock found three deficiencies in the state’s lethal injection procedure, report Reuters and a blog post by the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana. They are: The three-drug cocktail used differs from the two-drug process specified by state statute; there is no requirement that the executioner have experience with intravenous procedures; nor is there an experience or medical training requirement for the warden who determines whether the inmate is unconscious.

Sherlock used heightened scrutiny to evaluate the challenge by two death-row inmates because of a “dignity clause” in the state constitution that gives “a boost” to the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The clause provides, “The dignity of the human being is inviolable.”

"Montana judge strikes down state's lethal injection," by Yamiche Alcindor at USA Today.

State District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock said the execution method was a violation of the state constitution's protections against cruel and unusual punishment. He did not, however, question the constitutionality of the death penalty in Montana.

In a written decision handed down this week, Sherlock said the state's three-drug execution procedure differed from a two-drug protocol spelled out in law. That difference "increases the likelihood of confusion and error in the process," and creates "a substantial risk of serious harm," he said.

The judge also faulted a Montana practice that allows a prison warden with no medical training or execution experience to determine when a prisoner was unconscious before a fatal drug was administered, Reuters reports. Sherlock also found that the prison official setting up the execution process was not required to have experience with the intravenous procedure.

Earlier coverage of the Montana lethal injection ruling begins at the link.

Montana Judge Declares Execution Protocol Unconstitutional

That's the title of the Canadian Press report filed by Bill Graveland on the Montana lethal injection challenge.  It's via the Calgary Herald.  Here's an extended excerpt:

A Canadian who is fighting for his life on Montana’s death row scored a minor legal victory Thursday after a judge declared the state’s method of execution unconstitutional.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a civil lawsuit in 2008 on behalf of Ronald Smith that argued the lethal injections the state uses are cruel and unusual punishment and violate the right to human dignity.

District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock has agreed, pointing to problems such as lack of training for the individual who administers the drug, a discrepancy over whether two or three drugs should be used in the execution and the method used to determine if the inmate is actually unconscious.

“The Montana protocol has problems,” said Sherlock in his 26-page judgment.

“All three of these concerns create a substantial risk of serious harm violative of the plaintiff’s right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment.”

But Sherlock noted it wouldn’t be difficult to bring the protocol into line with what is expected.

“The court notes, theoretically, the legislature and the Department of Corrections can easily make changes to the protocol as are found wanting in this decision. These changes can be made quickly and, if done, the modified protocol could not be found in violation of the Montana Constitution.”

Smith’s lawyer said the ruling wasn’t a knockout but does buy his client some time.

“It’s a temporary victory. It was a given,” said Don Vernay, who practises law in Albuquerque, N.M. “When you’re executing people in a mobile home, you don’t really have your act together.

“They’ll just have to redo it. The stay remains in place. Judge Sherlock is the one who issued the stay so obviously now there’s nothing they can do until they make a new one and then it comes back to court again. So we’re years away probably.”

The order in Smith v. Montana is available in Adobe .pdf format.

"Judge finds execution method unconstitutional," is by Katie Schneider at the Sun News.

Ronald Smith cannot be put to death anytime soon, says his lawyer, after a Montana judge on Thursday declared the state's method of injection as unconstitutional.

The only Canadian on death row in the US, who will celebrate his 55th birthday Friday, received a small victory in his battle for his life following the decision by Judge Jeffrey Sherlock.

"Basically he decided as a matter of law, that Montana's lethal injection protocol was not constitutional, so what that will actually mean is they will have to go back and make a new protocol for executing people," Smith's lawyer Don Vernay said.

Vernay said while it's a decision in Smith's favour, it doesn't impact his case too much right now.

"In the event things were to go against us, there couldn't be an execution for the foreseeable future," he said.

In 2008, the American Civil Liberties Association launched a challenge against Montana's lethal injection protocol.

"The drug is just one facet of it -- it also has to do with the people who are qualified to administer it, the facility they have, it's a lot more involved than just the drug," Vernay said.

Smith was sentenced to death in 1983 for shooting to death cousins Harvey Mad Man Jr. and Thomas Running Rabbit.

The ultimate decision on whether Smith will be granted clemency rests with Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

Earlier coverage of Montana lethal injection issues begins at the link.  Related posts are in the lethal injection index.

Coverage of Montana Hearing

"ACLU says Montana's execution method is unconstitutional," is Matt Gouras' AP report, via the Great Falls Tribune.

The American Civil Liberties Union is arguing in state District Court that the method Montana plans to use to execute a Canadian on death row is unconstitutional.

The ACLU on Wednesday asked District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock to rule that the lethal injection protocol amounts to cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. and Montana constitutions.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit in 2008 on behalf of Ronald Allen Smith.

Smith originally sought the death penalty after pleading guilty in 1983 to the shooting of two Blackfeet Indian cousins. He later changed his mind and is now also seeking executive clemency from the governor.

The Montana Department of Corrections argues that its revised execution protocol meets constitutional muster.

"ACLU challenges Montana's lethal injection protocol," by Marnee Banks for KXLH-TV.

The Montana chapter of the ACLU is asking a District Court judge to rule that Montana's lethal injection protocol is unconstitutional.

They claim the execution protocol doesn't follow the state's own statute.

During a hearing on Wednesday, the ACLU attorney said that after the Legislature upheld the death penalty in 2011, the procedures changed to allow three injections.

However, the state statute only allows for two.

The state argues that there is no need to spell out the specifics as the state has had a flawless history.

The ACLU also says the protocol should include medically-trained personnel to conduct the execution, but the state counters that the warden has the authority and that he makes sure everyone is qualified.

Judge Sherlock says he hopes to make a summary judgement on the matter without having to go to trial.

"Lethal injection challenge could delay Ronald Smith's execution," by Bill Kaufmann for the Calgary Sun.

If a Montana court accepts his argument the state’s lethal injection practice is cruel, the execution of Canadian Ronald Smith could be delayed for up to three years, says a civil liberties lawyer.

 On Wednesday, American Civil Liberties Association (ACLU) lawyer Ron Waterman argued questions over the qualifications of executioners and drugs used should be cleared up before Smith is executed.

Smith is the only Canadian on death row in the U.S. for shooting to death cousins Harvey Mad Man Jr. and Thomas Running Rabbit.

But in a Helena court yesterday, Waterman sparred with state lawyers, raising questions about the executioners’ expertise and of the efficiency of the lethal drugs they use.

“The Montana protocol does not detail anything on the background of that … it can’t rule out with a reasonable degree of certainty that there’s a high risk of pain and suffering,” said Waterman, who’s challenging the constitutionality of the state’s executions.

And with the traditionally-employed sodium pentothal no longer available, the state hasn’t shown its replacements are suitably humane, he said.

“They’ve got to find other drugs and none of them satisfy that requirement,” he said.

Judge Jeffrey Sherlock, he said, listened attentively to his argument and Waterman expects him to make a ruling on the case within the next two weeks.

Earlier coverage of the Montana lethal injection hearing begins at the link.

An Update From Montana

"Montana governor meets family of Canadian on death row," is the AP report by Matt Gouras.  It's via the Missoulian.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Friday told the family of a Canadian on death row that he is undecided on the inmate's request for executive clemency, at times expressing sympathy for his plight and at other times noting the desire of the victims' families for retribution.

The governor had a long, frank discussion with relatives of convicted murderer Ronald A. Smith. Schweitzer told them that his options include doing nothing with the clemency request, which seeks life in prison without the possibility of parole instead of the death penalty.

Schweitzer sympathized with the plight of Smith, who is scheduled to be executed in the 1982 killings of two Blackfeet Indian men. The governor said it is not fair for Smith to be executed after an accomplice was paroled, and indicated he believes that Smith may be a different man.

But the governor said he has spoken with the victims' families, Blackfeet tribal members, who have told him they need Smith's death for closure. The governor said he remains uncertain whether Smith's death would improve the situation, and said he is not sure the traditional form of justice for the Blackfeet would include the death penalty.

"In their system of justice, when people did something very bad, they were banished,'' Schweitzer said.

A tribal council member has said that many in the tribe believe that if the governor gives clemency to Smith that means the governor values Native American lives less.

Schweitzer told Smith's family, from Alberta, Canada, that he is aware of that criticism, but argued it does not have merit because he believes he has done more than past governors to include Montana's largest minority group in his administration. Still, the governor is weighing the desire of those on the reservation.

And:

The board is recommending that Schweitzer dismiss the clemency request, writing in their report that "justice is best served" by continuing with the execution. The governor makes the final call.

Smith's sister, Rita Duncan, told the governor much of the same that she and others told the parole board: Smith is a changed man who deserves to live the rest of his life behind bars. Speaking in a barely audible whisper, Duncan at times broke down in tears, as she described the impact Smith has helping the rest of his family through letters and phone calls.

Also at the meeting were Smith's dad Nelson Smith, his daughter Carmen Blackburn and her two children.

The governor told them all options remain on the table. He does not have a timetable for making a decision, but noted the best-case scenario for Smith is life behind bars.

"His sentence, one way or another, is death: slow or long," Schweitzer said.

Schweitzer also expressed anger at Smith, who originally sought the death penalty at trial before changing his mind, for putting the state of Montana in the position of aiding a suicide he once wanted.

The Calgary Sun reports, "Family pleads Montana Governor to spare Ronald Smith's life."  It's by Bill Kaufmann.

Four generations of Canadian death row inmate Ronald Smith’s family pleaded Friday with Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer to commute the killer’s death sentence.

The five Albertans spent about an hour with Schweitzer in the governor’s Helena office, lobbying him to commute the death sentence the state’s parole board upheld last May.

Smith is the only Canadian on death row in the U.S.

Since May, Schweitzer also met with members of the families of Smith’s victims, Harvey Mad Man and Thomas Running Rabbit, whom he kidnapped and gunned down at the side of a Montana highway on Aug. 4, 1982.

The Democrat governor’s office wouldn’t comment on Friday’s meeting but Smith’s lawyer, Don Vernay, said it’s a worthwhile effort for his client’s family.

“Absolutely — they’re good people who have an incredibly strong relationship with Ron — he’s a foundation for them and the grandkids,” said Vernay.

Making the trip from Alberta to Helena was Smith’s father, Nelson, his sister Rita Duncan, his daughter Carmen Blackburn and grandchildren Myles and Nycole Blackburn.

Vernay said he’s still hopeful Schweitzer, in whose hands Smith’s fate now rests, will commute his sentence to life in prison.

Earlier coverage of the Montana case begins at the link.  Related posts are in the clemency index.

Montana Parole Board Recommends No Clemency for Canadian

The AP report is, "Mont. board: No clemency for Canadian on death row," by Matt Gouras.

The Montana Parole Board on Monday recommended that a Canadian man on death row be denied clemency, saying "justice is best served" by continuing with the execution.

Ronald A. Smith's case now goes to Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who could either grant or deny him clemency or make no decision at all before leaving office at year's end. Smith is seeking life in prison without the possibility of parole — instead of the death sentence he now faces.

Smith is believed to be one of only two Canadians on death row in the United States.

He argues his original 1983 trial for shooting two Blackfeet cousins — in which he asked for and received the death penalty — was botched. His attorneys also have argued it is fundamentally unfair that Smith, of Red Deer, Alberta, be killed while an accomplice was long ago released on parole and returned to Canada.

The Montana Parole Board earlier this month heard testimony for a full day, with Smith's family tearfully pleading for his life. But Blackfeet tribal members and family of the victims argued the execution has been postponed for too long and say it is time for Smith to pay for his crimes.

The Canadian government, after some internal policy changes, is again asking Schweitzer to spare Smith's life.

Smith's lawyers say the governor should look beyond the horrific 1982 killings of Harvey Mad Man, 23, and Thomas Running Rabbit, 20, and consider that Smith is now a different person. They are hoping Schweitzer will take an objective look at the matter since he leaves office at year's end and won't be running again due to term limits.

And:

It's unclear what, if any, action Schweitzer will take. There is no time limit for a final decision from the governor — and state law does not require him to make a decision before leaving office. That could leave the matter to his successor.

"Parole Board recommends against clemency for convicted killer Ronald Smith," is the Billings Gazette report written by Mike Dennison.

The Montana Board of Pardons and Parole on Monday unanimously recommended against clemency for death-row inmate and convicted killer Ronald Smith, saying his death penalty should stand.

The three-person board submitted its recommendation to Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who will make the final decision whether to grant Smith clemency and commute his sentence to life in prison without parole.

Schweitzer’s office gave no timeline Monday for his decision, saying only that he’ll review the recommendation and the record of Smith’s clemency hearing before the board on May 2.

The board’s recommendation, released late Monday afternoon, said it based its decision on testimony from the public at the May 2 hearing, Smith’s responses at the hearing and the board members’ “observations and evaluation of Mr. Smith himself during his hearing.”

However, the board’s letter to Schweitzer gave no specific reason for its decision — other than to say it was based “on the criteria that we use in each and every case … as provided in statute and administrative rules.”

And:

While all of Smith’s criminal appeals have failed, he is the lead plaintiff in a 2008 lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Montana’s lethal injection execution process. A trial on the lawsuit is scheduled this September before state District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock of Helena.

Smith’s lawyer, Greg Jackson, said Monday that the board’s decision is “obviously very disappointing,” and that board members apparently ignored testimony that showed Smith had made “tremendous and remarkable strides” in prison.

“Given the testimony (on Smith’s behalf) at the hearing that was, frankly, entirely unrebutted by the state, it’s incomprehensible to me that the board could have issued a unanimous decision against clemency,” Jackson said.

"Fate of Canadian on death row for double murder now in governor’s hands," is by Bill Graveland for the Canadian Press.  It's via Canada's National Post.

A Canadian on death row in Montana for killing two men 30 years ago was dealt a major blow Monday in his bid to avoid execution.

The Montana Board of Pardons and Paroles is recommending against allowing Ronald Smith to live out the rest of his life at the state prison — despite his emotional apology from Smith at his clemency hearing earlier this month.

“It’s not a surprise at all. Even though they made a big to-do about it, this report just shows the way the state of Montana has been all along,” Smith’s longtime lawyer Don Vernay said in a telephone interview with The Canadian Press.

And:

A report done by staff at the board, obtained prior to the clemency hearing, strongly recommended against granting Smith mercy.

Vernay said the board obviously didn’t want to rock the boat.

“It’s the easy route. It’s just going with the flow and it flies in the face of all the prison officials that testified and wrote letters for him,” he said.

“It’s just ridiculous when prison guards come up and say they sought this guy out to say goodbye when they retired. These people like him. I’ve never seen anything like it. If there is a case for clemency it is this one.

“The guy really has changed. You can’t fake it for 30 years.”

Earlier coverage of the Smith case begins at the link.  Related posts are in the clemency and foreign citizen category indexes.

The Montana Clemency Hearing

"Killer pleads for life; families ask for death sentence," is David Murray's report for the Great Falls Tribune.

"It is not our intent here today to in any way minimize the significance or severity of the crimes committed by Mr. Smith," said anti-death penalty attorney Ron Waterman at the beginning of the hearing. "Simply, it is a request for mercy."

Mercy and justice were central issues of the Ronald Smith clemency hearing in Deer Lodge on Wednesday. Does Smith's behavior in prison over the past 29 years warrant mercy on behalf of the criminal justice system? Was the severity of his crimes so heinous that the cause of justice demands the end of his life?

On Wednesday, a panel of three representatives from the Montana Board of Pardons and Paroles were asked to weigh the evidence pertaining to these questions. They will now have 30 days to deliver their answer.

Smith is the admitted gunman to two, cold-blooded murders in the summer of 1982.

And:

For eight hours on Wednesday, witnesses both supporting and opposed to clemency for Smith told their stories at the Powell County Courthouse. For most of that time, Smith, the admitted gunman in the murder of two Blackfeet men nearly 30 years ago, sat quietly and without a display of emotion. One by one, the witnesses rose to deliver their testimony. From a clinical psychologist, to a retired prison guard, from the former prosecutor who convicted Smith of homicide, to the still grieving families of the victims, each and every one told their stories.

More than 20 witnesses spoke to the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole. Their testimony will inform the board's decision on whether to grant Smith's request to reduce his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Board chairman Michael McKee said the decision will hinge on whether the board members conclude that Smith's rehabilitation and remorse is genuine.

"Death row Canadian cries at mercy hearing as sister reads letter about mother," is Bill Graveland's Canadian Press post, via the Toronto Star.

The only Canadian on death row in the United States broke down and cried at his clemency hearing in Montana on Wednesday.

Ronald Smith’s sister Rita Duncan was reading a letter he wrote to their mother after her death last year.

Smith covered his eyes, brushed away his tears and was patted on the shoulder by his lawyer.

Duncan said Smith has always loved her and she is proud to be his sister.

Smith’s daughter, Carmen Blackburn, also cried as she talked about her father and his remorse. She said she wishes she could take away the pain she can see behind his eyes.

Smith is asking the Board of Pardons and Parole to recommend his death sentence for killing two men in Montana 30 years ago be commuted.

A psychologist told the hearing that Smith is a model prisoner and poses little threat to the people around him. Dr. Bowman Smelko said Smith has shown improvement during his time in prison, and his cognitive ability has jumped 16 points from low to high average.

“He was not exposed to drugs and alcohol. He was not exposed to chaos. He has demonstrated significant change in attitude, thoughts and behaviour,” Smelko said. “He is what would be considered a model prisoner in the modern setting.”

Smelko added that Smith has shown remorse about what he did.

The hearing has also heard that Smith is well-liked by prison guards. Two are expected to testify on his behalf.

The hearing, which represents Smith’s final fight for life, began with a last-minute addition to the witness list.

The hearing heard that a Canadian consular official based in Denver plans to read a statement from the government asking the board to spare Smith’s life. Ottawa had already written a letter favouring clemency, but critics say the government’s support has been tepid.

"Canadian consular official will call for double-murderer Ronald Smith to be spared death penalty," is by Jason van Rassel for Canada's National Post.

The dramatic testimony came during the first morning of a two-day clemency hearing at the Powell County courthouse for Smith, who was sentenced to death for the 1982 shooting deaths of Harvey Mad Man and Thomas Running Rabbit.

Relatives of Mad Man and Running Rabbit, cousins from the Blackfeet Indian reservation, filled one side of the courtroom and watched impassively as Smith’s sister, Rita Duncan, began her testimony by turning to face them and offering condolences.

“Our hearts have broken along with yours,” said Duncan, who told the gallery her brother is a changed man.

“The Ron Smith who is sitting in front of you today is not the same man who committed those crimes 29 years ago.”

Smith, 54, is the only Canadian facing execution in the U.S., and Canada’s official opposition to the death penalty has given the case an added political dimension and subjected it to scrutiny on both sides of the border.

Earlier coverage of Ronald Smith's case begins at the link.

Montana Clemency Hearing for Canadian on Death Row

"Convicted murderer to plead for life at clemency hearing," is the Great Falls Tribune staff report.

Tomorrow morning convicted murderer Ronald Smith will walk into the Powell County Court House in Deer Lodge and plead for his life.

Almost 30 years earlier, Smith ignored the pleas of his two victims. He and another Canadian hitchhiker forced two young Blackfeet men into the woods near Marias Pass and shot them both in the head. It was a chilling crime — one Smith has never denied responsibility for.

During a hearing in 1983, Smith told the court that he killed Thomas Running Rabbit and Harvey Mad Man because he wanted to steal their car and because he wanted to know, "what it would feel like to kill someone." Then, in a surprise move that caught both state prosecutors and his own attorney off guard, Smith rejected an already negotiated plea agreement and requested the death penalty. At a sentencing hearing in March 1983, the court granted his request.

A few weeks later, Smith changed his mind. Since then, he and his attorneys have appealed his sentence seven times, variously arguing that Montana's method of execution is unconstitutional, that he received ineffective legal council and that a variety of mitigating circumstances warrant the commutation of his sentence. He has now exhausted that appeals process.

On Wednesday, Smith is scheduled to appear before the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole one last time. The parole board does not have the authority to commute Smith's sentence, but Smith will ask the three-member panel to recommend to the governor that his death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Only the governor can grant such clemency.

The CBC News reports, "Canadian on death row in U.S. hoping for clemency."

The only Canadian facing the death penalty in the United States hopes to persuade the people who will decide his fate he's not the same man he was 30 years ago.

Ron Smith, 54, has been on death row in a Montana prison since 1982 after he and an accomplice were convicted of killing two men in Montana.

Beginning Wednesday, he'll ask for clemency at a two-day hearing before the state's Board of Pardons and Parole.

"The person that committed those crimes isn't sitting here," the Red Deer, Alta., native told CBC's Mark Kelley in an interview to be aired on CBC News Network Tuesday night. "And again, I'm not trying to downplay the crime.

"I had a moment where emotions and anger got the best of me and I committed a horrible crime. That doesn't define me. If you want to define me, then take a look at the 30 years," he said.

"Canadian on death row to plead for his life," by the Canadian Press is via CP24.

His is the final name on the list of 16 witnesses put forward by his attorneys for the two-day clemency hearing before the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole beginning Wednesday in Deer Lodge, Mont.

The hearing is being held near the federal penitentiary where Smith, originally from Red Deer, Alta., has spent the last three decades locked up.

"I've always wanted an opportunity to step outside of all of this and to be able to apologize to the family and explain to them just everything about me at that point in time. I was a completely different person," Smith said in an interview last month with The Canadian Press. "It's who I am, who I've become and what I've got going into the future."

The decision to speak at the hearing before the three-member panel was entirely up to Smith, said Don Vernay, co-counsel for Smith who works out of Albuquerque, N.M.

"What we want to do is wait until everything is done and then have the last word," he said. "He's got to speak to the board. These are the people who are going to decide if he lives or dies. He's going to express his remorse and his desire to live."

A flood of support has been flowing into the office of the Board of Pardons and Parole asking it to spare Smith's life.

"Our office has received and continues to receive a colossal amount of support for the commutation from around the world based on individuals' moral beliefs against the death penalty rather than a personal investment or opinion with this particular case," writes a board staffer in a leaked report obtained by The Canadian Press last month.

"Executing Ronald Smith is simply not moral," is Naomi Lakritz' column for the Calgary Herald.

When the Montana parole board meets Wednesday to discuss the fate of death-row inmate Ronald Smith, it will consider his conduct in prison, his remorse for his crime, the feelings of his family, and the feelings of the families of the two men he murdered almost 30 years ago.

But one thing I'm willing to bet the board won't discuss is the only thing that matters — whether executing Smith for the killings of Thomas Running Rabbit and Harvey Mad Man is in itself, a moral thing to do. The answer, clearly, is no. Killing is not moral.

To say that killing Smith is immoral is not to deny or minimize the anguish that the two victims' families continue to suffer. Rather, it means that when meting out punishment, the justice system should never stoop to the level of the criminals who come before it, for then it is just as guilty as they are and has just as much blood on its hands as they do.

I don't know how Smith can live with himself after what he did, but I also don't know how members of the parole board can live with themselves if the board recommends to Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer that Smith should die. Is the U.S. a civilized society, or not? I would have to say that when a state governor holds the power of life or death in his hands, the answer is a loud "not." How does that work?

Earlier coverage of Ronald Smith's case begins at the link.  Related posts are in the clemency and foreign citizen indexes.

From Mexico

Today's Latin American Herald Tribune reports, "Government Urged to Do More for Mexicans on U.S. Death Row."  Here's an extended excerpt:

Mexico’s independent National Human Rights Commission called on the government to intensify its efforts to prevent Mexicans from being executed in other countries, noting that 58 of the nation’s citizens are currently on death row in the United States.

The death penalty, which Mexico formally outlawed in 2005, is “the most severe penalty imposed on people, the application of which is irreversible, and it is a measure that does not guarantee that justice is served,” the commission said in a document titled “Protecting the Right to Life.”

It said therefore that it takes steps to monitor and verify that Mexicans sentenced to capital punishment abroad receive consular assistance and legal representation.

The organization said it also seeks “in appropriate cases” to have the death penalty commuted to lengthy prison sentences.

According to official figures, 745 Mexicans had their death sentence commuted between 2000 and 2011. The rights commission said its records indicate a total of 58 Mexicans on death row at U.S. prisons through 2011.

The majority of those defendants were named in a lawsuit the Mexican government brought against the United States in 2003 before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, citing violations of procedural guarantees contained in the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

In its 2004 ruling in what is known as the Avena case, the ICJ instructed the United States to “review and reconsider” the convictions and death sentences handed down to 51 Mexicans who were denied their right to consular notification and assistance at the time of their arrest.

However, in June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the ICJ’s ruling was not enforceable as domestic law because Congress had not passed implementing legislation.

Several months later, one of the Mexican citizens included in the Avena case, Jose Ernesto Medellin Rojas, convicted of partipating in the 1993 gang rape and murder of two teenage girls in Houston, Texas, was executed in that state.

Another Mexican citizen, Humberto Leal Garcia, convicted of the 1994 rape and murder in San Antonio of a 16-year-old Texas girl, was executed last year after the Supreme Court denied his attorneys’ request for a stay of execution based on authorities’ alleged failure to provide him with consular assistance at the time of his arrest.

Related posts, including coverage of the Medellin and Leal cases, are in the foreign citizen index.

Texas Observer on the Linda Carty Case

Alex Hannaford takes a lengthy examination in the current issue of the Texas Observer, "Did Death Row Inmate Linda Carty Get a Fair Trial?"  Here's the introduction:

Trafalgar Square, just a stone’s throw from the very center of the British capital, is an expanse of paved sidewalk, pretty fountains and, most notably, five statues. The central statue is of Admiral Lord Nelson, after whose infamous 1805 sea battle the square is named; King George IV stands in one corner; two historical army generals in the others. The 'fourth plinth', as it's known, remained empty for 150 years, but for the last decade or so it has been used to showcase a series of artworks. For one day in September 2009, though, it carried a cardboard cut-out of an African-American woman, while beneath it, a portable PA system broadcast her voice — calm, and with a slight Caribbean lilt — to passers-by.

“Hello Trafalgar Square,” she said. “My name is Linda Carty and I'm speaking to you from death row in Texas in the United States.”

Her name will mean little to most Texans: the arrests, charges and then sentences in the case were reported locally -- but briefly -- in the Houston Chronicle and a longer piece appeared in the same paper in 2010 following the Supreme Court's refusal to review Carty's case. But the British press had been on it for a long time. In fact, over the last eight years, thanks to news reports (in everything from broadsheets like the Independent and Guardian to tabloids like the Daily Mail and Express), magazine features, a prime time television documentary and a sustained campaign by a London-based human rights group, Carty has become something of a cause célèbre in the UK — and not just for those opposed to capital punishment. Many feel that, irrelevant of her guilt or innocence, Carty simply didn’t get a fair trial.

From the Trafalgar Square plinth, Carty’s disembodied voice continued: “I'm sorry I sound like a desperate woman but I am desperate. The British people may be my last hope. If they ask for my life to be spared, maybe Texas will listen.”

But why has a little-known inmate on Texas’s death row — one of 10 women and 311 men — got the British all a fluster?

Carty was born on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts when it was still a British colony. As such, Carty holds British citizenship, and under the terms of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, when she was first arrested, the British consulate in Houston should have been informed. But it wasn’t.

Earlier coverage of Linday Carty's case begins at the link.

Black, Brown and Invisible: Minorities on Death Row

That's the title of an event in Houston, tonight, at the University of St. Thomas.

Scholars and legal experts join author and former Mexican Consul General of Houston Ricardo Ampudia in a conversation about the impact of the death penalty, particularly on minority defendants.  Topics to be addressed include capital punishment, innocence, disregard of Geneva Conventions and other accords concerning consulates and detained nationals.  A Q&A will be moderated and followed by a book signing.

Participants:
· Ricardo Ampudia is a journalist, diplomat and author of Mexicans on Death Row (Arte Público, 2010), which explores the history and ethics of capital punishment and how it affects the sentencing of Mexicans in the United States.

· Scott J. Atlas, a former litigation partner for the firm Vinson & Elkins (1982 -- 2006), led the legal team that won the release of Ricardo Aldape Guerra, an undocumented immmigrant who spent 14 years on death row.  He was the first Mexican National ever released from Texas' death row.

· Nicole Casarez. attprmeu amd professor at the University of St. Thomas, teaches journalism, media law, public relations and media ethics.  Casarez's affiliation with the Texas Innocence Network has led to investigative work on numerous capital and non-capital cases, including that of exonerated Texas dath row inmate Anthony Graves.

· David R. Dow is the Cullen Professor at the University of Houston Law Center, Rorschach Visiting Professor of History at Rice University and founder of the Texas Innocence Network.  Dow is the author of The Autobiography of an Execution

The book is Mexicans on Death Row by Ricardo Ampudia.

Ricardo Ampudia explores the history and ethics of the death penalty in this fascinating look at its impact on Mexicans sentenced to death in the U.S.  Originally published in Mexico as Mexicanos al grito de muerte, this absorbing account of the history, use and flaws of the death penalty is a must-read for anyone interested in the criminal justice system.

The event is free and open to the public.  For more information, call 713-743-2999.

The event on Twitter is:

#blackbrowndeathrow

Related posts are in the books, event, and foreign citizen index.

Consular Notification Failure an Issue in Nevada

UPI posts, "Serbia appeals U.S. death sentence."

The Serbian government has appealed to a U.S. court to spare the life of a Serbian citizen currently facing execution in Nevada, officials said.

The Serbian consulate said it was not informed about the arrest of Avram Nika as required by international law, and the Serbian government maintains such notification would have meant Nika could have received assistance that may have spared him the death penalty, Serbian news agency Tanjug reported Tuesday.

Such assistance should have been available to Nika because of his inability to speak English and his lack of familiarity with the U.S. legal system, Serbia's brief filed in a Reno court says.

"The failure to notify the consulate caused no mitigating evidence to be presented at his sentencing hearing, such as that he was a hard-working family man who came from poverty and was discriminated against because he is a member of a nomadic ethnic group known as Roma," the brief says.

"Serbia seeks to block execution of citizen in Nev.," is the AP report, via CBS News.

The Serbian government is asking a Nevada court to block the execution of one of its citizens, saying its consulate was not informed of his 1994 arrest as required by international law.

Serbia, in a friend-of-the-court brief filed last week in Washoe County District Court in Reno, maintains the notification would have provided Avram Nika with assistance that could have spared him the death penalty.

Nika, 41, is on death row at Ely State Prison for the 1994 killing of a good Samaritan who stopped to help him along Interstate 80 near Reno. He has yet to exhaust his state and federal appeals.

"(Nika was) particularly vulnerable to the denial of consular assistance due to his inability to speak English and his lack of familiarity with the U.S. legal system and culture," Serbia's brief says.

The failure to notify the consulate caused no mitigating evidence to be presented at his sentencing hearing — such as that he was a hard-working family man who came from poverty and was discriminated against because he was a member of a nomadic ethnic group known as Roma, also called Gypsies, according to the document.

District Attorney Dick Gammick says there was no consulate to contact because the former Yugoslavia where Nika was from was undergoing drastic change at the time. Serbia did not exist as a country then, he said, and other countries in the region came and went.

And:

It's not the first time a foreign government has appealed to U.S. courts on behalf of one of their citizens who wasn't given the benefit of their consulates.

Last month, Mexico's government unsuccessfully petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to stay a Texas execution to allow Congress time to consider legislation that would require court reviews for condemned foreign nationals who aren't offered the help of their consulates. The high court rejected the request 5-4 and the Mexican citizen was executed.

Mexico protested and the United Nation's top human rights official said the U.S. broke international law when it executed Humberto Leal for a 1994 rape and murder.

The Nevada case marks the first time Serbia has tried to enforce its rights under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, according to the prisoner advocacy group Reprieve based in London.

Related posts are in the foreign citizen index.

Linda Greenhouse on the Supreme Court Term

For those who follow the Supreme Court, Linda Greenhouse is a national treasure.  Her latest New York Times Opinionator blog post is, "A Supreme Court Scorecard."  I'll excerpt her comments on the Leal case, but the entire post is a must-read.

The recently concluded Supreme Court term is not lacking for sober analysis, so I’ll indulge my freedom to take a different approach. This is an annotated scorecard, a personal take on the term based on what jumps out at me as I look back over the past year.

And:

Most regressive decision: In a competitive category, I’ll give the nod to a little-noticed decision the court issued just a week ago. By a vote of 5 to 4, with an unsigned opinion speaking for the majority, the court denied a temporary stay of execution to a Texas death-row inmate despite the urgent pleas of the federal government and the government of Mexico.

The inmate, Humberto Leal Garcia, who was executed within hours of the court’s ruling, was a Mexican citizen convicted in 1995 of the kidnapping, rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl. There was no dispute that his conviction was obtained in violation of a treaty to which the United States is a signatory, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The treaty provides that a foreign national who has been charged with a crime must be notified of the right to the assistance of officials of his native country’s consulate. Law enforcement officials in the United States routinely violated this provision, a situation that led in 2004 to a successful lawsuit by Mexico in the International Court of Justice on behalf of 51 Mexicans then on death row in several states. The Bush administration declared that the United States would abide by the judgment.

But in 2008, when one of the 51, Jose Ernesto Medellin, attempted to avoid execution by invoking the consular treaty and the international court’s judgment, the Supreme Court ruled that the treaty was not “self-executing” and was unenforceable in the absence of congressional legislation. There matters stood until last month, when Senator Patrick Leahy, at the behest of the Obama administration, introduced the requisite legislation, the Consular Notification Compliance Act.

With Mr. Leal Garcia’s July 7 execution date approaching, the inmate’s lawyers, the administration, and the Mexican government all urged the court to grant a stay of at least several months to give Congress time to act. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. told the court that the case, Leal Garcia v. Texas, “implicates United States foreign-policy interests of the highest order” and that the execution “would cause irreparable harm to those interests by placing the United States in irremediable breach of its international-law obligation.” American citizens detained abroad might also face consequences as a result, the government warned.

But “our task is to rule on what the law is, not what it might eventually be,” the court’s majority responded. If the bill “had genuinely been a priority for the political branches, it would have been enacted by now.” One might ask: what part of Congress don’t they understand? There was an air of judicial triumphalism to the unsigned opinion, a tone between petulant and scolding more appropriate for use on an annoying teenager than on the president and Congress – or, as Justice Breyer pointed out in dissent, the world. The other dissenters were Justices Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Earlier coverage of the Leal execution and international treaty law begins with the preceding post.

U.S. Treaty Promises Must Mean What They Say

That's the title of an editorial in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The grisly crime for which Texas executed Humberto Leal on July 7 -- the 1994 rape and murder of a San Antonio teen -- makes it difficult to generate sympathy for him.

But the rule of law applies to everyone, even unsympathetic characters.

The law that brought an international glare to Leal's case was the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a 1963 treaty that obligates the United States and more than 160 other signatories to let foreigners they arrest ask their home embassies for legal help.

But when Leal, a Mexican citizen, was arrested, authorities didn't tell him about his right to contact his native country's embassy. He didn't find out about it until he'd been convicted and sentenced to death. And despite an international court's later ruling that he was entitled to a hearing over the deprivation of his consular right, he never got one.

U.S. officials acknowledge this country's treaty obligations toward citizens of other nations. Following the treaty is especially important because we expect other countries to let Americans detained abroad get aid from the U.S. Embassy.

But Leal was among dozens of Mexican nationals on Death Row in the U.S. who weren't told they could seek embassy help. A dispute over the issue has stewed for years.

And:

Though his case is over, that shouldn't remove the urgency of Congress approving legislation to make clear that this nation takes treaty promises seriously and will enforce them.

Linda Greenhouse discusses the case in her "Supreme Court Scorecard," freshly posted on her NYT blog.  Coverage of her commentary will occupy the next post.

Earlier coverage of the Leal execution and international treaty law begins at the link.

 

Criticism of Leal Execution Continues

 Today's Washington Post carries the editorial, "Congress should act before another foreign national is denied consular access."

HUMBERTO LEAL JR., who was executed in Texas on Thursday, was one of 40 Mexican nationals on death row in the United States who were not advised of their right to consular access under the Vienna Convention for Consular Relations. The United States, as one of about 160 countries that signed the treaty, is obligated to notify foreign nationals who are arrested in the United States of their right to speak with their embassies. U.S. citizens have the same rights if they are arrested in a country that is also a signatory, which may be particularly important in countries that do not routinely allow defendants access to lawyers.

In an extraordinary move, the Obama administration had asked the Supreme Court to stay Mr. Leal’s execution. The request was intended to give Congress a few months to move on legislation that would have addressed the Vienna Convention breach. That legislation, introduced by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) in June, would have allowed Mr. Leal and the 39 other Mexican nationals a one-time special hearing before a federal court judge to determine whether the failure to allow consular access significantly harmed their ability to defend themselves. The hurdles would have been high, meaning that few, if any, would have been likely to win new trials. Mexico joined in asking the court for a stay, as did former U.S. diplomats from Republican and Democratic administrations.

And:

Although we disagree with how the court disposed of this case, the majority makes a critical point: It has been seven years since the judicial arm of the United Nations found that the United States violated the Vienna Convention by not notifying Mr. Leal and his compatriots of their rights to consular access. It should not take another seven years before Congress acts to remedy the situation.

Influential business travel writer Joe Brancatelli writes, "Texas Hubris Threatens Travel," in his Portfolio column.  Here's an extended excerpt:

You may not be shocked to learn that a government recently violated international law by executing a foreign national without allowing him to consult his embassy. But wait until you learn where it happened.

What would you think if a big, industrial democracy arrests foreign nationals, denies them their right to contact their embassies, then executes them when they are convicted?

And what would you think if this big developed nation has been informed that its policy of denying foreign nationals the right to consult their embassies is a violation of international treaties? And what would you think if this preening, self-righteous nation freely admits it violates the rights of arrested foreign nationals?

My guess is that you, as a right-thinking frequent flyer, would be afraid to travel to this awful place. My guess is that you'd think no business trip is worth putting yourself at risk because this nasty pseudo-democracy so cavalierly disregards its treaty obligations and the rights of frequent-flying foreign nationals.

Here's the rub: That big industrial democracy routinely arresting foreign nationals, denying them their right to consult their embassies, and executing them upon conviction is the United States of America.

In case you missed it—and you might have because the mainstream press was obsessed with the Casey Anthony verdict—the state of Texas executed a Mexican national last Thursday for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl in 1994. The Mexican citizen, Humberto Leal Garcia, was executed even though he was never granted his right to contact the Mexican embassy. The state of Texas doesn't even deny that it violated Garcia's consular rights. Appeals from the Obama White House, the State Department, and dozens of politicians and social activists went unheeded.

Let's get some things straight before we go any further. First, this is not an isolated U.S. indiscretion. Virginia executed a Paraguayan citizen in 1998 even though it violated his right to consult with his embassy. Arizona executed a German national in 1999 even though it conceded that he'd never been given his consular rights. A U.N.-backed tribunal decided in 2004 that Garcia was one of dozens of Mexican nationals sentenced to death by U.S. courts who had been denied their consular rights. The administration of President George W. Bush endorsed the ruling at the time.

Second, the issue of consular consultation is not a matter of interpretation or courtesy. It is unambiguously detailed in Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which the United States signed in 1969. The U.S. government routinely invokes it to protect U.S. citizens when they are arrested or detained overseas. American businesspeople traveling overseas assume the right's existence even if they don't know the Vienna Convention by name and don't grasp the diplomatic niceties.

Lastly, this is not a matter of guilt or a polemic about the death penalty.

The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina carries the OpEd, "State courts and foreign nationals," by Cara Robertson.  She's a resident associate at the National Humanities Center.

When I was the lone American lawyer advising the Appeals Chamber of the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague 10 years ago, I had an additional unofficial task: explaining the U.S. legal system to my international colleagues. Most found our notions of federalism, with its parallel state and federal judicial systems, mystifying; many objected to what seemed to be the United States' cavalier attitude towards international law.

The Supreme Court's refusal to delay Texas' latest execution of a Mexican national - over the objections of the White House and State Department - provides evidence for both views. More than that, it is an international embarrassment.

And:

How best to mitigate the damage Texas has caused? Ideally, Congress would pass the Consular Notification Compliance Act to ensure enforcement of the treaty's protections. But it is equally true that Texas, as an exercise of its own sovereign largess, could undertake the review demanded by the ICJ. Such review is unlikely to change the prisoners' fates. Assuming the evidence against the convicted men is as strong as Texas has contended, it would be hard to find "actual prejudice" - i.e., that Texas' failure to inform the consul led to the defendant's conviction or death sentence.

Such action is in every American's interest. After all, even Texans have been known to travel south of the border.

"Execution of Mexican Citizen Draws Wide Condemnation," is the IPS post by Denis Foynes.

Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, who visited Mexico last week, said the execution had placed "the U.S. in breach of international law".

"What the state of Texas has done in this case is imputable in law to the U.S. and engages the United States' international responsibility," she said.

"[The] ramifications are likely to spread far beyond Texas," Pillay warned.

The government of Mexico has claimed it could have assisted in Garcia's defence investigation, provided funds for experienced investigators and mental health experts, and taken measures to ensure that Garcia had competent attorneys to represent him.

At the trial, questions were raised about the competence of the attorneys Garcia was provided with. One had been twice suspended from practicing law for failing to adequately defend clients, and was publicly criticised on two other instances.

For these reasons, the Mexican government had requested that Garcia's sentence be reduced to life in prison.

And:

Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, told IPS, "This wasn't an international diplomacy decision. It came down to domestic politics and the division between the left and right in America."

One consequence of the execution is a further souring of Mexican-U.S. relations, a relationship already strained by border issues such as drug violence and immigration.

"Mexican justice has the reputation in the United States of being careless, but now if the U.S. now has a complaint regarding the arrest of one of its citizens, it hasn't a leg to stand on," Birns said.

"How Obama Could Have Stayed the Execution of Humberto Leal Garcia," is the title of Louis Klarevas' commentary at the New Republic.

On Thursday, July 7, the Supreme Court refused a last minute stay of the execution of Mexican national Humberto Leal Garcia, despite the undisputed fact that Leal was tried and sentenced to death by a Texas court without ever being informed that he had a right to seek the assistance of the Mexican Consulate following his arrest. Within hours of the high court’s denial, Leal was executed by lethal injection. Case closed? Not exactly.

And:

Conventional wisdom suggested that Obama didn’t have much recourse, so he did the best he could to prevent Leal’s execution. This, however, reflects a misunderstanding of the plenary foreign-affairs powers available to his office. Indeed, there are two legal solutions that the president could have invoked to bar Texas from executing Leal: executive agreements and the Zschernig doctrine. Obama, and all presidents after him, would be wise to consider these measures in the future.

As to the Zschernig doctrine, Klarevas adds:

If an executive agreement were to become too difficult to negotiate (for instance, if time were of the essence), the president would have another option available to him—that is, to seek an emergency stay by invoking the Zschernig doctrine in court pleadings. The doctrine is a constitutional authority carved out by the Supreme Court in its 1968 Zschernig v. Miller decision. That ruling struck down an Oregon inheritance law because judges had used it to make disparaging comments about communist countries in Eastern Europe. Pursuant to the holding, states’ actions are to be pre-empted if there is a “great potential for embarrassment or disruption” in the nation’s foreign affairs. As the Court noted, when states have “a direct impact upon foreign relations and may well adversely affect the power of the central government to deal with [international] problems,” their actions should be forbidden. In 2003, the high court revisited the Zschernig doctrine in American Insurance Association v. Garamendi and held it to be good precedent. Applying it to strike down a California law that required insurance companies to disclose their Holocaust era practices, the Court reaffirmed that “state action with more than incidental effect on foreign affairs is preempted, even absent any affirmative federal activity in the subject area of the state law, and hence without any showing of conflict.”

Earlier coverage of the Leal execution and international law begins at the link.

More Commentary on the Leal Execution

"Case about protecting Americans," is the title of the editorial in today's Austin American-Statesman.

Our state and our governor missed an important opportunity last week to do something positive for our nation. It happened Thursday when Texas executed Humberto Leal, a 38-year-old Mexican who had lived in San Antonio since he was a toddler.

And:

In 2005, then-President George W. Bush concurred with an International Court of Justice decision that 51 Mexicans imprisoned in the U.S., including Leal, were entitled to new hearings on whether their consular rights had been denied. The Supreme Court overturned Bush's decision. After the Leal execution, Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said, "Texas is not bound by a foreign court's ruling."

We believe there is more at stake here than a foreign court's ruling.

A post-execution statement from five former U.S. diplomatic officials who urged postponement of the execution properly said likewise.

"The United States was founded on a commitment to the rule of law, and we believe it still stands for that commitment," they wrote.

"But (Thursday's) execution of a foreign national of our international partner Mexico violates a binding legal obligation and threatens to undermine the strength of our credibility in the eyes of our international partners."

We join these ex-officials in urging Congress to move expediently toward consideration and approval of the Leahy measure.

In today's Washington Post, syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne writes, "The death penalty and the costs of an obsession."

The unseemly love affair some American politicians have with the death penalty is bad for justice and bad for our country’s standing in the world. It inflicts a wholly unnecessary moral stain on a nation that rightly preaches the rule of law to everyone else.

Even more remarkable is the indifference that five Supreme Court justices have shown to such considerations.

And then there is Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who insisted on pushing ahead last week with the execution of Humberto Leal, a Mexican national convicted of the rape and killing of a teenager. Even former president George W. Bush — who presided over 152 executions as Perry’s predecessor — had qualms about the case. Bush hasn’t gone soft. He’s legitimately worried about the costs of the United States thumbing its nose at the government of Mexico and the world.

President Obama, the International Court of Justice and the Mexican government all wanted a stay of execution. But Perry’s press secretary was unapologetic. “Texas,” said Katherine Cesinger, “is not bound by a foreign court’s ruling.”

Imagine that an American life was at stake and a press secretary said that Iran — or Russia or Saudi Arabia or China — did not feel “bound by a foreign court’s ruling.”

And:

Those who oppose the death penalty or think it’s imposed too frequently don’t disagree that terrible crimes deserve severe punishment. But this is not about absolving criminals. It’s about our nation’s core values and how the rest of the world sees us. In this instance, it’s also about protecting the rights of Americans overseas.

When it comes to capital punishment, can’t we find it in ourselves as a nation to let our reason check our passions, even when those passions are entirely understandable?

Jay Jochnowitz, Editorial page editor of New York's Albany Times Union posts, "Defying treaty, Texas executes Mexican national."  The Times Union is a sister paper of the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News; all Hearst-owned.

Should states respect international treaties that already bind the federal government when it comes to foreigners’ legal rights? Or, in the absence of U.S. law to the contrary, should they execute foreign nationals regardless of what the treaties say?

Those were the underlying questions before Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a potential Republican contender for president, in the court battle over the Humberto Leal Garcia, 38, who was executed in Texas on Thursday. Perry went ahead with the execution over the protest of U.S. diplomats, the military, the Obama administration and at least one member of Congress.

Although Leal is dead, there are 50 or so other cases like his pending, so the issue isn’t going away.

And:

What do you think? Does this all fall on Congress for not passing the law requiring states to review these cases? Did Perry do the right thing? Just because he could have, does it mean he should have? Did presidential politics (Perry is talked about for the GOP nomination but hasn’t declared) play a part in this, or is this simply consistent with Perry’s and Texas’ record on the death penalty? (There have been 232 executions on Perry’s watch. Here’s a year-by-year breakdown on executions in Texas; he took office on Dec. 21, 2000.)

Legal analyst Andrew Cohen has posted, "Humberto Leal Garcia: The Supreme Court Makes a Bad Situation Worse," at the Atlantic.

When the five conservative justices of the United States Supreme Court turned their backs Thursday afternoon on Mexican national Humberto Leal Garcia, they weren't just ensuring that the convicted murderer would then be executed by Texas prison officials. They were also abdicating their solemn judicial responsibility not to make a bad situation worse. It was one of the most ignoble acts by the Court in recent memory; a reminder, as if we needed one, of the hostility the current majority often expresses toward the workings of the real world.     

In a brief, unsigned opinion that was long on sterile formalism and short on sense and justice, the Court rejected an appeal to delay Leal's execution for a few more months pending the passage of federal legislation designed to formalize the rights of foreign nationals -- including Americans abroad -- to be able to contact their consular officials if they are detained. About an hour after the Supreme Court denied his final request, Leal was executed. He said he was sorry and reportedly shouted "Viva Mexico" before the lethal injections were administered to him in the state's death chamber in Huntsville, Texas.

And:

There has been a great deal of analysis and commentary on the Leal case -- some of it better than the rest -- but at heart, Thursday's dramatic events are simple to explain. The Court's majority went out of its way to allow Texas to proceed with an execution, even though the state would have been only minimally harmed in waiting a few more months (or even a few more years) to proceed. The Court did so despite broad concerns, expressed by officials in both of the other two branches of government, that the Leal's execution now would harm the interests of the United States abroad. And, by doing so, the Court compounded rather than solved an important legal problem raised by the Leal case.

Just because Congress has consistently failed to do the right thing here doesn't mean that the Court had to follow its lead. The result is a big, black mark on the face American justice now shows to the rest of the world.

Earlier coverage of the Leal case begins at the link.  There will be another post this evening with more post-execution developments.

Statements from Sandra Babcock, Diplomats

Humberto Leal's attorney, Sandra Babcock, issued the following statement after the Supreme Court rejected a stay in his case, earlier tonight.  Babcock is a Clinical Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law and the Clinical Director of the Center for International Human Rights.

.“Today the United States stumbled in its commitment to the rule of law.  Mr. Leal, tragically, will suffer the consequences.  He will be executed tonight, despite the fact that his right to consular assistance was violated.  If he had had the assistance of the Mexican consulate at the time of trial, Mr. Leal would have had a meaningful opportunity to show that he was not guilty of capital murder.

“It is shameful that Mr. Leal will pay the price for our inaction.  The need for Congressional action to restore our reputation and protect our citizens is more urgent than ever.

“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. That is why the U.S. Solicitor General, former diplomats, military leaders, and Americans detained overseas were among those who joined together to call for a stay of execution.

“It is now imperative that Congress promptly act to ensure passage of legislation that will bring the U.S. into compliance with its international legal commitments and provide judicial review to the forty Mexican nationals who remain on death row in violation of their consular rights.”

A group of diplomats who had urged a stay in the case issued this statement:

“The United States was founded on a commitment to the rule of law, and we believe it still stands for that commitment.  But today’s execution of a foreign national of our critical international partner Mexico violates a binding legal obligation and threatens to undermine the strength of our credibility in the eyes of our international partners.  We are disappointed that Texas has chosen not to comply with the clear international legal obligations of the United States under the U.N. Charter and unanimously confirmed by the Supreme Court.

“In light of this irrevocable breach of our nation’s international legal obligations, it is now more imperative than ever that Congress and the Obama Administration move immediately to provide for our nation’s full compliance in the future by enacting the Consular Notification Compliance Act.

“The ability of the United States to secure future international agreements vital to the protection of our citizens, our national security, and our commercial interests depends largely on whether this nation is perceived as honoring its international commitments.  We now look to Congress and the Obama Administration to act without delay to discharge this treaty commitment on behalf of the entire United States.  Prompt congressional action will ensure that the cases of other foreign nationals who did not receive the consular notification required by the Vienna Convention on Consular Rights will move towards a final and legal resolution that respects the rule of law.

“Congress and the Administration should move immediately to enact legislation ensuring compliance with our international obligations.  The safety of our citizens abroad, and our nation’s reputation and standing among its international treaty partners, depend on it.”

The statement was issued by:

Harry Barnes, Jr.
U.S. Ambassador to Chile, 1985-1988; U.S. Ambassador to India, 1981-1985; Director General of the Foreign Service 1977-1981; U.S. Ambassador to Romania, 1974-1977

John B. Bellinger, III
Partner, Arnold & Porter LLP; Legal Advisor to the Department of State, 2005-2009; Legal Advisor to the National Security Council, 2001-2005

David E. Birenbaum
Of Counsel, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP; Senior Scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; U.S. Ambassador to the UN for UN Management and Reform, 1994-96

James R. Jones
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, 1993-1997; Member of U.S. Congress (D-OK), 1973-            1987

Thomas R. Pickering
Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, 1997-2000; U.S. Ambassador and Representative to the United Nations, 1989-1992

Earlier coverage of the case of Humberto Leal begins with the preceding post.

Humberto Leal Executed by Texas

By a 5-4 vote the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stay tonight's execution.  The opinion, and a dissent by Justice Breyer, is available in Adobe .pdf format.

Adam Liptak writes, "Mexican Citizen Is Executed as Justices Refuse to Step In," for the New York Times.

In a 5-to-4 decision that split along ideological lines, the Supreme Court on Thursday evening rebuffed a request from the Obama administration that it stay the execution of a Mexican citizen on death row in Texas. The inmate, Humberto Leal Garcia Jr., was executed about an hour later.

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.

On Thursday, in an unsigned majority opinion, the Supreme Court said that Congress had had plenty of time to act and that the court would not now “prohibit a state from carrying out a lawful judgment in light of unenacted legislation.”

“Our task,” the majority wrote, “is to rule on what the law is, not what it might eventually be.”

And:

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, in a dissent joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, wrote that the government’s request was modest given that allowing the execution to proceed would, in the solicitor general’s words, “cause irreparable harm” to “foreign-policy interests of the highest order” and endanger Americans traveling abroad.

The court should defer to the executive branch’s assessment, Justice Breyer wrote, as “the court has long recognized the president’s special constitutionally based authority in matters of foreign relations.”

He proposed issuing “a brief stay until the end of September” to allow Congress time to act.

The AP report, "Texas executes Mexican after court stay rejected," is by Michael Graczyk, Jesse J. Holland in Washington, and Porfirio Ibarra in Monterrey, Mexico.

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.

"Perry Does Not Step In; Texas Executes Mexican National," by Chris Strohm for the National Journal.

After a 5-4 Supreme Court decision against preventing the execution, Gov. Rick Perry was the only the only person who could issue a stay for Leal. Leal was killedy by lethal injection for the 1994 murder of 16-year-old Adria Sauceda.

Current and former U.S. government officials contend that Leal’s execution will have major implications for U.S. diplomatic relations because he was never given access to the Mexican consulate during his defense as required under international law.

The case also had political significance in that Perry is considering a run for president and his decision on whether to stay the execution will be scrutinized by both his supporters and critics.

CNN's Supreme Court Producer Bill Mears posts, "Mexican national executed in Texas."

Mexico strongly condemned the execution, saying it violated an International Court of Justice ruling ordering the United States to review capital convictions of Mexican nationals.

Leal's execution was the seventh carried out in Texas this year; It was the 471st execution in the state since 1982.  This was the 232nd execution in the administration of Governor Rick Perry since he assumed the office in December 2000, succeeding George W. Bush.  Texas carried out 152 executions during the five year tenure while Bush was governor.

It was the 26th execution in the nation this year.  To date, there have been 1,260 post-Furman executions in America since 1977.

Next, statements from interested parties.  Earlier coverage of the case of Humberto Leal begins at the link.

Sandra Babcock on Democracy Now!

Sandra Babcock appeared on Democracy Now!, earlier today.  "Mexican Denied Consular Rights Faces Texas Execution Tonight Despite White House Opposition."

Leal’s family still maintains he is innocent and defense attorney says his case was also hurt by inadequate counsel by his court-appointed attorney. Barring a last minute stay by Texas Governor Rick Perry or the U.S. Supreme Court, Leal is set to be executed at 6pm. We speak with Humberto Leal’s attorney, Sandra Babcock.

You can watch the streaming video at the link.

Earlier coverage of Humberto Leal's case begins with the preceding post.  For more on the case, and a petition, go to the Humberto Leal website.

Bloggers on Leal

"The rights of Texas, Mexico and Americans jailed abroad," is the title of Tim Johnson's post at his Mexico unmasked blog on the McClatchy DC Bureau website.  He's the Mexico bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers.

Pity the poor American who ends up in jail abroad. 

If Texas gives a lethal injection to Humberto Leal Garcia on Thursday, after failing to notify Mexican consular officers when he was arrested, then certainly foreign countries will feel free to give Americans a dose of their own medicine.

Some 2,000 Americans are arrested and locked up abroad each year, according to this article, and some of them are given bizarre punishments. Remember Michael P. Fay, the Missouri youth sentenced to caning in 1994 in Singapore for theft and vandalism? Then there are the Americans who have been held in Myanmar, Syria, Iran or North Korea. 

Dozens of Americans are probably in jails in Mexico. Read about two of them here. Many of them are likely guilty. But certainly it helps if U.S. consular officers can be notified when they are arrested, visit them in prison and ascertain facts about their cases.

Mexico has spent a lot of money and time on Leal, 38, accused of the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl in 1994. He is one of 57 Mexicans on death row in the United States. El Universal says the Secretariat of Foreign Relations has spent $10.5 million just to one Tucson law firm for the defense of its nationals on death row.

At Talking Points Memo DC, Thomas Lane post, "Will Perry Order Last-Minute Halt To Controversial Execution?" 

For a convicted murderer, Humberto Leal Garcia seems to have plenty of powerful people in his corner. In the last few days appeals for delaying the execution of this death row inmate have come from the Mexican ambassador, various UN officials and even the Obama administration's Solicitor-General.

However, it's not really Mr. Leal they're defending, but a point of international law; a point that many say the US is obliged to uphold, and which Texas Governor Rick Perry will violate if he doesn't halt the killing.

And:

The right to consular access, then, is the key here. Neither the Obama administration nor the international officials are saying Mr. Leal is innocent. What they are saying is that his case should be the subject of a review to determine whether Mexican assistance could have changed his sentence.

They're backed by a 2004 ruling from the International Court of Justice. That specifically requested such a review for Mr. Leal and fifty other Mexican nationals like him. These officials say if Texas proceeds with the execution, violating this ruling and showing disregard for the original treaty, then it could have "serious repercussions." Relations with Mexico would certainly be damaged. More worryingly, they claim, it could encourage other nations to show a similar disdain for allowing consular access when Americans find themselves in legal difficulties abroad.

"Humberto Leal Execution Raises Thorny International Issues," by David Dayen at FireDogLake.

I would imagine that the perspective of the White House is that this is less about Leal than the precedent it sets for US nationals abroad. The Vienna Convention on the arrest of foreign nationals would be violated by this execution, although it wouldn’t be the first time. In 2008, in a separate Texas case, Jose Medellin was executed after conviction for murder, even though his lawyers raised the Vienna Convention issue as well. The Leal case has been more publicized, and goes back to a 2005 ruling in the International Court of Justice. They said that Leal needed a new hearing to see if his consular rights were violated by being denied access to the Mexican consulate at the time of his arrest. George W. Bush agreed with that ruling, but the Supreme Court negated it.

The hopes that they will stay the execution of Leal today rest on the notion by the US solicitor general that Congress has pending legislation to allow this kind of consular rights review, bringing the country in line with the Vienna Convention. I’m wondering if the solicitor general has seen Congress operate lately. There’s no such thing as “pending” legislation there anymore. In fact, this law has been introduced and failed twice before. So far, lower courts rejected the stay.

Texas Governor Rick Perry appears to have no interest in a reprieve while the international issues are sorted out, especially given that he may run for President, and wouldn’t want anything resembling compassion on his record heading into a GOP primary.

"Mexican national set for execution in Texas, despite treaty concerns," by Jason Ukman at the Washington Post.

The Obama administration urged the Supreme Court on Friday to delay the execution, saying that if it were carried out, it would affect “foreign-policy interests of the highest order.” The Mexican ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhan, has also requested a reprieve for Leal based on concerns about legal representation.

The breach of international obligations would “have serious repercussions for United States foreign relations, law-enforcement and other cooperation with Mexico, and the ability of American citizens traveling abroad to have the benefits of consular assistance in the event of detention,” Solicitor General Donald B.Verrilli, Jr. wrote in an amicus brief filed with the court.

Despite the pleas, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday rejected Leal’s request for a delay.

Three years ago, Texas executed another Mexican national on death row despite international entreaties. Jose Ernesto Medellin, who also had not been informed of his right to access consular officials, was put to death following pleas for a stay by the Bush administration, which also cited U.S. treaty obligations.

One more current Leal post before turning to news of the past week - and that will include a roundup of Leal case news, also.

Earlier coverage begins with the preceding post.  For more on the case, and a petition, go to the Humberto Leal website.

International Takes on the Leal Case

The U.K.'s Independent carries, "Texas defies calls to delay execution of Mexican."  It's written by US editor David Usborne.

Texas appeared set last night to proceed with the execution today of Humberto Leal Garcia Jnr, rebuffing requests for a delay from defence lawyers, the White House and the State Department.

The Mexican government has joined the chorus admonishing Texas, arguing that regardless of the guilt or innocence of Leal – who was convicted of raping and murdering a 16-year-old girl in 1994 by bludgeoning her with a slab of asphalt – the state is in violation of the Vienna Convention of Consular Relations, which requires foreign nationals have access to their consulates when taken into custody in another country.

Barack Obama has also exhorted the Supreme Court to intervene with a warning from the Solicitor General, Donald Verrilli, that the execution threatened US relations with Mexico. The State Department urged Governor Rick Perry to postpone the execution, pointing out that denying these rights to foreigners in the United States could lead to American citizens being treated similarly overseas.

Canada's National Post has, "Texas execution plan gets caught in diplomatic debate," compiled by Araminta Wordsworth.

Full Comment’s Araminta Wordsworth brings you a daily round-up of quality punditry from across the globe. Today: When George W. Bush asks his successor as Texas governor to postpone an execution, you know something weird is going on.

During Bush’s stint as governor, more than 150 people were executed in Texas, the U.S.’s most punitive state. Now, Governor Rick Perry is defying claims by international courts, the UN, and the Obama administration that Texas is denying Vienna Convention rights to Humberto Leal Garcia Jr., a Mexican prisoner. He is due to be put to death by lethal injection on Thursday evening.

The President has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and order a stay of execution. Former U.S. diplomats, retired military leaders, former judges and prosecutors, and organizations representing Americans abroad are also lining up to plead for a delay.

Washington, DC based Al Jazeerah English language has, "Obama seeks delay in execution of Mexican."

The US state department said the US government had determined that when arrested, Texas authorities did not inform Garcia of his right to have access to Mexican consular officials, as they are required to under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

"This is an issue of reciprocity for the United States. It is critical for our ability to get consular access and protection for our own citizens when they find themselves in similar circumstances when they are arrested or detained by foreign governments," Victoria Nuland, the state department spokesperson, said.

And:

The Texas board of pardons and paroles on Tuesday denied Garcia's request for a reprieve or commutation
of his sentence, leaving any final decision on his fate to either the Supreme Court or Rick Perry, the Texas governor.

Silvia Vazquez, a lawyer from the Mexican commission for the defence and promotion of human rights, said they were doing everything they could to halt the execution.

"We have to review the areas where the procedure was violated. If we can present something to help prove his innocence, witnesses, evidence, whatever, that could help his situation to change his sentence," Vazquez said.

A spokesperson for Perry told the Reuters news agency that the governor had no plans to halt the execution and that the Texas attorney general's office had urged the Supreme Court not to intervene.

Bloggers on the Leal case, next.

Earlier Leal coverage begins in the preceding post.

The Latest News Coverage in the Leal Case

"Texas Urged To Stop Mexican National's Execution," by Renee Montagne and Wade Goodwyn, is on NPR Morning Edition, today.  You can listen at the link.

Nathan Koppel posts, "Rare Death-Penalty Case Becomes International Diplomatic Affair," at the Wall Street Journal Law Blog.

Humberto Leal Garcia Jr. is due to be executed this afternoon in Texas for raping and murdering a 16-year-old San Antonio girl in 1994.

But this is no ordinary death-penalty case. Instead it has turned into a dispute over international law that has prompted a rare plea from President Obama and his Solicitor General’s Office to delay the execution.

The issue is that Leal is a Mexican citizen and Texas law enforcement officials failed to tell Leal that the Vienna Convention afforded him the right to notify Mexican consular authorities about his arrest and to seek their help with legal representation.

The Obama administration is concerned that if the U.S. does not abide by its Vienna Convention duties then foreign governments may feel emboldened to ignore the consular rights of U.S. nationals abroad.

Here’s an article from the Atlantic and one from AP about the unusual death penalty case.

"White House seeks delay of Mexican man's execution," is the latest AP filing.  I believe this link will update through the day.  It's by Michael Graczyk.

The planned execution Thursday of a Mexican national has prompted a flurry of appeals on his behalf, including a rare plea from the White House, because of what it could mean for other foreigners arrested in the U.S. and for Americans detained in other countries.

Humberto Leal, 38, is awaiting a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on whether to block his lethal injection in Huntsville. He was sentenced to die for the 1994 rape and murder of 16-year-old Adria Sauceda of San Antonio.

The appeal contends that authorities never told Leal after his arrest that he could seek legal assistance from the Mexican government under an international treaty, and that such assistance would have aided his defense. Leal moved to the U.S. as a toddler.

Leal's attorneys have support from the White House, the Mexican government and other diplomats who believe the execution should be delayed so his case can be thoroughly reviewed.

"There can be little doubt that if the government of Mexico had been allowed access to Mr. Leal in a timely manner, he would not now be facing execution for a capital murder he did not commit," Leal's attorneys told the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles in a clemency request rejected Tuesday. "Unfortunately, Mexico's assistance came too late to affect the result of Mr. Leal's capital murder prosecution."

President Barack Obama's administration took the unusual step of intervening in a state murder case when it asked the Supreme Court last week to delay Leal's execution for up to six months. The U.S. solicitor general told the court that Congress needed time to consider legislation that would allow federal courts to review cases of condemned foreign nationals to determine if the lack of consular help made a significant difference in the outcome of their cases.

CNN posts, "Mexican national awaits execution in Texas."  It's by Bill Mears, CNN's Supreme Court Producer.

Gov. Rick Perry is expected to decide shortly whether to grant clemency or any delay in the execution of Humberto Leal Garcia, Jr. The Obama administration and international leaders overseas have asked for a reprieve on behalf of the inmate.

What makes Leal's conviction unusual is that he was not informed about the right to contact the Mexican consulate upon his arrest -- a right guaranteed under a binding international treaty. Leal's appellate lawyers argue such access could at the very least have kept Leal off death row.

Supporters of the Monterrey, Mexico, native say his fate could impact Americans traveling abroad who run into legal trouble.

Leal's likely last hope is with the Supreme Court, which is considering several appeals to delay the lethal injection, set for 7 p.m. ET at the Texas State Penitentiary's death chamber in Hunstville.

The state's Board of Pardons and Parole ruled that Leal did not deserve to have his death sentence commuted to life in prison without parole. Perry normally accept's the board's ruling when making his own decision, but he could grant a 30-day reprieve.

The justices will decide whether to issue a stay of execution, and whether to decide the broader legal question of what rights death row inmates from foreign nations deserve. If they intervene, the constitutional issues would be addressed by the high court in coming months, delaying Leal's execution.

National Journal carries, "A Texas Death Row Case With Implications for Foreign Policy and Presidential Politics.  Texas Gov. Rick Perry is drawing heat from the international community and the Obama administration as he mulls a White House bid."  It's by Chris Strohm.

The case of a Mexican man scheduled to be executed on Thursday in Texas threatens to disrupt U.S. diplomatic relations abroad and creates a politically volatile dilemma for Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who is considering a run for president.

Unless Perry or the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes to stay the execution, Texas plans to execute Humberto Leal Jr. at 6 p.m. Central Time for the 1994 murder of 16-year-old Adria Sauceda.

The International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 that the United States violated the rights of Leal and more than three dozen other Mexican nationals on death row because law enforcement officials didn’t advise them of their right to have consular access to officials from their home country under international law.

Some foreign-policy experts say executing Leal might have profound international consequences, and the Obama administration last week asked the Supreme Court to prevent Texas from doing so.

Perry, however, has shown no sign of backing down. And the case has thrust the conservative governor into the international spotlight as he weighs an entrance into the presidential race. That introduces politics into any decision he makes about Leal.

If he stays the execution, he runs the political risk of being called weak by conservatives. Allowing it to go forward, it could cast Perry as a staunch conservative who doesn’t give in to the demands of Washington and international pressure. But it also invites comparisons to former President George W. Bush, who was criticized for a go-it-alone approach on foreign policy.

Ironically, it was the Bush administration that recognized the international law guaranteeing foreign nationals consular access. In 2005, Bush ordered all states, including Texas, where he was the former governor, to comply with the law. Perry, who replaced Bush as the Lone Star State's chief executive, made Texas the only state not to comply.

More news at:

"Mexican National Inmate on Death Row Creates International Stir," by Edmund DeMarche at Fox News.

Jordan Smith posts, "U.S. Enters Death Row Fray,"for the Austin Chronicle.

Earlier coverage begins in the preceding post.

For more on the case, and a petition, go to the Humberto Leal website.

 

The World Is Watching

That's the title of an editorial in this morning's New York Times.

On Tuesday, the Texas Board of Pardons turned down Mr. Leal’s request for a 180-day stay of execution following a denial by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The state court ducked blame by saying that Gov. Rick Perry had the power to grant a one-time 30-day stay so Texas could “honor its duty under the Supremacy Clause to honor the treaty obligations of the United States.”

The Supreme Court is Mr. Leal’s last hope. The court ruled in 2008 that Texas did not have to comply with the treaty because there was no federal law requiring states to do so. But Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. indicated that once Congress took up the treaty issue, it would be unjust not to allow a foreign citizen to have his case reviewed.

The solicitor general filed a brief supporting a stay because that would “serve compelling national interests.” The Mexican government told the court a stay was “absolutely critical.” Congress is in the process of fixing the gap in the federal law. It would be a miscarriage of justice if the Supreme Court allowed Mr. Leal’s execution before Congress could complete that remedy.

"Leal execution puts U.S. at risk," is the San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board's message, today.

Unless Gov. Rick Perry grants a last-minute reprieve, the state of Texas will put Humberto Leal to death today in Huntsville. Leal may well be guilty of the gruesome murder of a 16-year-old girl in San Antonio in 1994. That's not the most contentious issue of his case.

What is being contended is U.S. compliance with its obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty in 1969, which requires nations to notify consular officials if a foreign national “is arrested or committed to prison or to custody pending trial or is detained in any other manner.”

Leal is a Mexican citizen. Yet officials in the Texas criminal justice system never informed him of his right to contact Mexican consular officials, nor did they inform those officials that a Mexican national was in their custody on a murder charge.

The notification might not have made any difference in the outcome of Leal's trial. But proceeding with his execution without following the Vienna protocol will have dangerous consequences for Americans who live, work or travel abroad.

“If we do not comply with our obligations under the Vienna Convention,” John B. Bellinger III, who was the U.S. government's senior international lawyer in the administration of President George W. Bush, told the New York Times, “we put at risk Americans, including Texans, who travel and may be arrested overseas.”

In the next posts, I'll link news coverage - which is being updated almost constantly at this post - blog posts and others.  I'll have a post with linked coverage during my absence.

Earlier coverage of the Leal case begins at the link.

For more on the case, and a petition, go to the Humberto Leal website.

 

A Leal Update

"High Court Asked to Stay Execution of Mexican National," is the title of Mark Hansen's post at the ABA Journal.

Lawyers for a Mexican national on Texas' death row petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court today for a stay of the inmate's scheduled July 7 execution.

The petition has the backing of the Mexican government, which is expected to file an amicus brief in the case later today calling on the United States to live up to its treaty obligations with other countries, according to a press release from the inmate's lawyers.

The Petition for Writ of Certiorari and the Motion for Stay are available in Adobe .pdf format.

Attorneys for Leal have issued a news release, "U.S. Supreme Court Urged to Stay Execution of Humberto Leal Garcia Whose Consular Rights were Violated."  Here's the full text:

(Washington, D.C., June 28, 2011) Today, attorneys for Humberto Leal Garcia and the Government of Mexico are jointly appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to stay Mr. Leal’s July 7 execution.

Attorneys for Mr. Leal filed a petition for writ of certiorari and a stay motion in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the Court “must not allow Texas to subvert Mr. Leal’s constitutional rights and the compelling institutional interests of Congress and the Executive in a race to execution, particularly given the overwhelming public interest in achieving compliance with the Avena Judgment.”  The Government of Mexico, in an amicus curiae brief that will be submitted to the Court later today, will note that the United States has been a forceful advocate for U.S. nationals detained in Mexico, and is expected to call upon the United States to live up to its treaty commitments.

The petition and stay motion are attached. The amicus brief will be distributed later today.
 
The documents filed by Mr. Leal’s attorneys point out that the "Consular Notification Compliance Act" would allow for judicial review of Mr. Leal's case and the cases of forty other Mexican nationals on death row who were denied consular access at the time of their arrests, and would bring the U.S. into compliance with Article 36 of the Vienna Convention. The legislation has widespread support from the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of State.

The petition concludes, “If denying Mr. Leal the review and reconsideration of his conviction and sentence ordered by the ICJ is so important as possibly to justify the serious harm to U.S. interests identified by the President, this Court, and many, many others that would follow from that treaty breach, that judgment should be made by the U.S. Congress, not Texas.  The United States’ word should not be so carelessly broken, nor its standing in the international community so needlessly compromised.” 

Prominent bipartisan groups, including former U.S. diplomats, retired military leaders, former judges and prosecutors, and organizations representing Americans abroad, agree that Mr. Leal's execution should be stayed to allow time for Congress to remedy the consular violations in his case. These diverse groups have expressed concern that if Mr. Leal is executed despite the violations, other nations will be emboldened to violate the consular rights of U.S. citizens arrested in foreign countries and all Americans abroad will be put at risk.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held that Mr. Leal was entitled to judicial review of his conviction and sentence to determine if he was harmed by the United States’ violation of the Vienna Convention.  The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the United States was obligated to comply with the ICJ decision, but held that Congress must act to implement the Court’s decision.  Both the Bush and Obama administrations have sought to enforce the decision.

The legislation also calls for a stay of execution in any case where a date has been set pending federal review. Mr. Leal is scheduled for execution on July 7.
 
Having no prior criminal convictions, Mr. Leal was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death in 1994, but not informed of his right as a Mexican national to seek assistance from the Mexican consulate under the Vienna Convention for Consular Relations. Attorneys for Mr. Leal argue that had he been provided consular assistance, he would not have been convicted or sentenced to death. The court-appointed lawyers Mr. Leal received were inexperienced and ineffective.  One of them was suspended from the practice of law twice for failing to adequately represent clients and publicly reprimanded on two other occasions.   
 
“The undisputed violation of his Vienna Convention rights in his case goes to the very heart of the validity of his conviction and sentence,” Mr. Leal’s attorneys argue in their motion for stay of execution.  “Among other things, Mexico would have ensured that [Mr. Leal] was represented by highly qualified and experienced defense counsel who would have challenged the prosecution’s reliance on junk science to obtain a conviction and would have presented powerful mitigating evidence at the penalty phase, including expert testimony regarding Mr. Leal’s learning disabilities, brain damage, and sexual abuse at the hands of his parish priest."
 
Once the Mexican consulate was given access to Mr. Leal's case, they provided funds for necessary investigators and experts that led to the discovery of Mr. Leal’s brain damage and sexual abuse. 

The Consular Notification Compliance Act allows for review of cases precisely like Mr. Leal's where lack of consular assistance may have made the difference between life and death.

Attorneys for Mr. Leal are also awaiting a decision on a clemency petition and stay motion from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Rick Perry.

Late Monday, three judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a concurring opinion which stated that the pardons board and Governor Perry should stay Mr. Leal’s execution until “legislation passes that finally implements our indisputable treaty obligations and provides a remedy for [Mr. Leal’s] right under international law.” 

The CCA judges added: “There is no dispute that allowing [Mr. Leal’s] execution to go forward without first affording him a hearing in satisfaction of the International Court of Justice’s judgment in the Avena case, would violate the United States’s treaty obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the Optional Protocol, and Article 94 of the United Nations Charter – obligations that are binding on Texas by way of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.”

Documents and background information on Mr. Leal's case, including letters of support from the bipartisan groups and from victims' organizations representing survivors of sexual abuse, can be found at: www.HumbertoLeal.org.

The legislation and a statement from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy can be accessed [at the link.]

Earlier coverage of the Humberto Leal case begins at the link.  More information is at the Humberto Leal website.

Attention Focusing on Humberto Leal Case

"Texas Is Pressed to Spare Mexican Citizen on Death Row," is the title of Adam Liptak's latest Sidebar column in the New York Times.  It will appear in tomorrow's print edition; it's just been posted to the NYT site.

Texas is planning to execute Humberto Leal Garcia Jr. next week. His case is in many ways unexceptional: ghastly crime, substantial but problematic evidence, inept defense lawyer.

In another sense, though, Mr. Leal’s case is different from those of the six men Texas has already put to death this year.

He is a citizen of Mexico. After his arrest, he was denied his rights under the Vienna Convention to consult Mexican consular officials.

Had his government been allowed to come to his aid, Mr. Leal’s lawyers say, he might still have been convicted. But they say that legal help from the Mexican government would almost certainly have kept him off death row.

Former judges, law enforcement officials, military leaders and diplomats have lined up on Mr. Leal’s side. Most take no position on Mr. Leal’s guilt or on the death penalty. Their argument is more practical.

“If we do not comply with our obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and the U.N. Charter,” said John B. Bellinger III, who was the State Department’s top lawyer in the Bush administration, “we put at risk Americans, including Texans, who travel and may be arrested overseas. It is surprising that Texas does not recognize the risks it may be creating for its own citizens.”

True, Texas provided Mr. Leal with a lawyer. But the convention requires that arrested foreigners also be told of their right to speak with consular officials and put in contact with them “without delay.”

Billy Hayes, whose ordeal in a Turkish prison was the subject of the movie “Midnight Express,” wrote a letter to Gov. Rick Perry this month urging him to grant a reprieve to Mr. Leal. In an interview last week, Mr. Hayes said he could not have imagined negotiating the Turkish legal system without the emotional support and logistical help that American diplomats provided.

“It’s a different country,” he said, “different language, different law and different rules.”

Mr. Leal, by contrast, did not learn of his rights until two years after his conviction, and even then not from American authorities but from a fellow inmate.

Journalist Euna Lee writes the OpEd, "Consular access: A two-way street on a crucial right," for the Washington Post.  She's the author of author of The World is Bigger Now: An American Journalist’s Release from Captivity in North Korea.

In 2009, while on assignment for Current TV, my colleague Laura Ling and I were arrested by North Korean soldiers for crossing the frozen Tumen River, which separates the Republic of China and North Korea. We were imprisoned and isolated from one another for 4¹/₂ months. We were repeatedly interrogated, eventually put on trial and sentenced to 12 years’ hard labor. It was only through the extraordinary efforts of the State Department and former president Bill Clinton that we were pardoned and allowed to return home. 

It is difficult to describe the fear that comes with being arrested and detained in a foreign country. The sense of darkness in that first week of North Korean captivity was unbearable. My biggest fear was nobody knowing where I was or what had happened to me. The strained relations between the United States and North Korea only increased my despair.

In the middle of the second week, though, I was handed a lifeline: a meeting with the Swedish ambassador, who represented U.S. interests and pointed out to North Korea its responsibilities under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. His hard work yielded a meeting no longer than 10 minutes, but the significance is hard to express. I can only mention the sense of security I now had — that someone outside of North Korea was monitoring my case. The prompt consular access, I believe, protected me from any physical mistreatment by my captors. I was allowed to meet with the ambassador three more times. The meetings were my only communication with the U.S. government — the only way for me to ask for help and to deliver messages to my family. I know the importance of what the Vienna Convention provides. 

And:

The United States has always been in the forefront of the fight for human rights. People look to us to be a watchdog for human rights violations around the globe. We ask the world to treat our citizens with respect when they are detained in other countries, including honoring their right to consular access. It is a two-way street. The United States must lead by example in honoring consular treaty obligations and in providing a remedy when that right is violated. If Congress does not act swiftly, other countries will be encouraged to violate the consular rights of U.S. citizens traveling abroad. I know firsthand that this is a risk we cannot take.

Today's National Law Journal carries commentary by Lori F. Damrosch,, "Time to comply with the Vienna Convention."  She is the Hamilton Fish Professor of International Law and Diplomacy at Columbia Law School.

U.S. citizens travel, study and work abroad in vast numbers. Every year, thousands of them are detained and sometimes jailed, not always under circumstances comporting with U.S. views of due process. The bulwark of their protection is the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which binds the United States and 172 other countries to notify nationals of treaty partners who are arrested or detained of their right to contact the consulate of their country.

The Vienna Convention has been the supreme law of the land since 1969, when it was unanimously approved by the Senate and brought into force by President Richard Nixon. The Senate gave advice and consent on the basis that the treaty would be self-executing — that is, that no implementing legislation would be needed.

This premise turned out to be incorrect. In Medellin v. Texas (2008), the U.S. Supreme Court held that an international judgment based on the Vienna Convention could not be given effect as directly applicable federal law. Rather, Congress would have to adopt the necessary legislation to enable the United States to comply with its treaty obligations.

It is now urgent for Congress to enact such legislation. Since 2004, when Mexico obtained a ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on remedies for U.S. treaty violations affecting 51 Mexican nationals on death row in U.S. states (Avena and Other Mexican Nationals), the United States has been under a binding obligation to afford a judicial remedy to those individuals.

One of them, Humberto Leal, is scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas on July 7.

And:

Under Article 36 of the Vienna Con­vention, a foreign national who is arrested or detained for any reason whatsoever must be notified "without delay" of his right to communicate with the consular post of his country. The 51 Mexican nationals covered by the Avena judgment were not given any such notice and thus Mexico was unable to give them consular services in their trials on capital charges.

Earlier coverage of the Leal case and the federal legislation pending in the U.S. Senate begins at the link.

More information is at the Humberto Leal website.

An Update on the Humberto Leal Case

"Federal judge won't stop Mexican's execution," is the AP report filed by Michael Graczyk.  It's via the Houston Chronicle.

A federal judge has refused to stop the upcoming execution of a Mexican national convicted of the 1994 rape-slaying of a 16-year-old San Antonio girl.

Humberto Leal, 38, a native of Monterrey, Mexico, faces lethal injection July 7 in Huntsville.

Leal's attorneys argued his punishment should be blocked because he wasn't told he could contact the Mexican consulate for legal help after his arrest for the murder of Adria Sauceda. They also said a bill introduced last week in Congress would allow federal courts to review cases of condemned foreign nationals.

U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia ruled Wednesday the consulate claim was "utterly lacking in arguable merit."

He also said the measure introduced June 11 by Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy was "a mere proposal" and that similar attempts have failed twice in recent years.

"It is not an enactment of new law," Garcia said.

Leal's attorneys presented several dozen former diplomats, State Department officials and retired military officers backing their appeal and the likelihood that Leahy's measure would pass Congress.

Garcia dismissed them as "little more than highly speculative predictions from a variety of political science professors and a handful of hopeful executive branch and congressional officers."

Sandra Babcock, an attorney for Leal and a Northwestern University law school professor, said Garcia's decision would be appealed.

"With consular access, Mr. Leal would have had highly qualified and experienced lawyers and expert assistance that would have transformed the quality of his defense," she said. "The legislation before Congress is narrowly tailored to provide review for precisely this kind of case where lack of consular assistance may have made the difference between life and death.

"Mr. Leal is constitutionally entitled to receive a stay of execution while Congress is considering taking the necessary measures to remedy this serious violation."

Earlier coverage of the Leal case and the federal legislation begins at the link.

Bellinger on the Treaty Bill

John B. Bellinger III, served as legal adviser to the U.S. Department of State during the administration of President George W. Bush.  Bellinger writes a Letter to the Editor of the New York Times, "Congress and a Treaty."

Re “The Treaty and the Law” (editorial, June 18):

You are right to urge Congress to pass legislation to require federal courts to review the convictions of certain foreign nationals, including 40 Mexicans, on death row in Texas and other states who were not notified by state officials of their right to speak to a consular officer of their governments, in violation of United States treaty obligations. But you did not mention that review of the convictions of the Mexicans was mandated by a 2004 decision of the International Court of Justice.

And:

Some members of Congress may now be reluctant to take action to comply with a World Court decision, but they should recognize, as the Bush administration did, that the United States cannot expect other countries to comply with their treaty obligations to us unless we comply with our treaty obligations to them.

Earlier coverage of the Leal case and the federal legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate begins with today's Houston Chronicle editorial.  The Times editorial is noted at this link.

Houston Chronicle on the Leal Case

Today's Houston Chronicle carries the editorial, "Keeping our word: Scheduled Texas execution violates treaty and endangers Americans abroad."

Americans traveling abroad are protected, whether they are aware of it or not, by a treaty called the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, ratified by about 170 countries, which guarantees them access to U.S. consular assistance if they are detained or arrested in a foreign country. In 2010, more than 6,600 Americans were arrested abroad, and more than 3,000 were incarcerated. Many of them benefited from the protections of this treaty.

But unfortunately, the U.S. has repeatedly failed to offer those same protections to foreigners on U.S. soil. The most egregious of these violations is the denial of consular assistance to foreign nationals convicted and sentenced to death. (Currently, about 100 foreign nationals are on U.S. death rows.) And in a particularly urgent case, one of those individuals whose rights were violated, a Mexican national named Humberto Leal Garcia, is scheduled to be executed on July 7 in Huntsville.

Because a bill has been introduced to bring the U.S. into compliance with the treaty, Leal's attorneys have filed a federal petition and a motion for a stay of execution so that Leal will be alive and eligible for the remedies of this legislation when it becomes law.

There are compelling reasons why these petitions should be granted. Chief among them is the fact that this pending legislation will allow for review of cases like Leal's, said his attorney Sandra Babcock, "where lack of consular assistance may well have made the difference between life and death. That's why the consular access really matters." Mexico provides top-flight legal assistance to its nationals under such circumstances.

And:

For all of these reasons, we urge Congress to act swiftly to pass this legislation, and we urge Gov. Perry to give Leal, and others in his situation, the time to benefit from its remedies if they are shown to have been harmed.

Earlier coverage of the case of Humberto Leal and the federal legislation begins at the link.

Ambassador Thomas Pickering on the Leal Case

His Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post is titled, " Delay this execution."

The Post got it right in calling on government officials to diligently uphold our international treaty commitment to allow foreigners prompt and ongoing consular assistance [editorial, June 14]. My experience as a U.S. diplomat made clear that compliance with international obligations is critical to protecting Americans abroad, meeting foreign policy objectives and preserving our reputation as a law-abiding nation. The country’s interests are not served by violating international law — as happened in the case of death row inmate Humberto Leal Jr.

These concerns are why I joined several former U.S. diplomats and State Department officials in urging Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) to stay Mr. Leal’s execution. Congress recently introduced sound legislation to bring the United States into compliance with our undisputed treaty obligations and to allow federal court review of the violations of consular rights in cases such as Mr. Leal’s. Texas should stay his execution while legislation that could affect his case remains pending.

Pickering was undersecretary of state for political affairs from 1997 to 2000 and ambassador and representative to the United Nations from 1989 to 1992.  The Post editorial, "Why the U.S. should allow arrested foreigners to contact their consulates," is noted in this StandDown post.

Earlier coverage of the Leal case begins with a New York Times editorial.  Related posts are in the foreign citizen and international law indexes.

The Treaty and the Law

That's the title of an editorial in the Saturday New York Times on the Humberto Leal case.

Humberto Leal García Jr., a Mexican citizen who faces execution in Texas next month, has petitioned Gov. Rick Perry for a six-month reprieve. He is asking for a stay under a vital international law, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which requires that foreign nationals who are arrested be told of their right to have their embassy notified of that arrest and to ask for help.

In recent years, the treaty has provided important protection for Americans who have been detained in Iran, North Korea and elsewhere. Mr. Leal was not notified after his arrest of his right to contact his embassy. But the Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that Texas did not need to comply with the treaty because there is no federal law requiring that states do so.

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont on Tuesday introduced a bill that makes clear that federal law requires that states tell foreign nationals who have been arrested that they can contact their consulates for help.

For those who were convicted and sentenced without being told, the bill would let them ask a federal court to review their case and decide whether the outcome would have been different if they had had diplomatic help. After the bill was introduced, Mr. Leal petitioned Federal District Court for a stay to keep Texas from “rushing to execute” him before Congress has time to act.

And:

For the sake of justice, the governor and court should grant the stays. For the protection of foreigners arrested here, and American citizens arrested abroad, Congress should pass Senator Leahy’s bill.

Earlier Leal coverage begins at the link.  Related posts are in the foreign citizen and international law indexes.

The clemency petition, case background, and other information is at Humberto Leal. 

Readers who wish to sign a petition urging clemency can do so at the link, or using the right-column Take Action box.

Federal Petition Filed for Leal

Today's San Antonio Express-News reports, "Death-row petition in S.A. killing now in federal court."  It's written by Guillermo Contreras.

A Mexican national convicted of killing a 16-year-old girl in San Antonio in 1994 has turned to the federal courts in an effort to block his execution next month.

On Thursday, lawyers for Humberto Leal Jr., 38, filed in San Antonio a federal habeas petition and a motion for a stay of execution, which is set for July 7.

The appeal asks U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia to halt the execution while Congress weighs legislation introduced Tuesday that would address an international court's concern that Mexican nationals on death row were not informed of their right to contact their consulate when they were arrested.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague found that neither Leal nor 50 other Mexican citizens on death row in the United States had been told they could contact their consulate and said the legal remedy was to grant new hearings to them to determine if consular access would have affected the outcome of their capital murder trials.

A year later, then-President George W. Bush tried to force states to hold such hearings and Texas fought the order. The case of Mexican national Jose Medellin went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that only Congress could require states to follow the international court's ruling.

Five months later, Medellin was executed for the rape and murder of two Houston girls.

On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., introduced the Consular Notification Compliance Act. If passed, it would give federal courts jurisdiction to review cases of foreign nationals on death row in the United States, and ensure that all foreign nationals charged with a capital offense be informed of their right to contact their consulates.

Leal's lead lawyer, Sandra L. Babcock, a professor at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, wrote in the federal appeal that Leal “has a federal due process right to remain alive so that he can benefit from the legislation.”

The AP filing is, "Mexican national sues to block his Texas execution," via the Houston Chronicle.

A Mexican national on Texas' death row for the 1994 beating death of a teenage girl filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court in San Antonio asking a judge to block his execution next month.

Humberto Leal Jr., 38, of Monterrey, Mexico, is scheduled to die in the Texas death chamber in Huntsville on July 7 for the rape and fatal bludgeoning of 16-year-old Adria Sauceda in San Antonio.

His attorneys want a federal judge to allow time for Congress to consider legislation introduced this week that would allow federal judges to review the cases of foreign nationals awaiting execution in the United States, the San Antonio Express-News reported. The Texas attorney general's office had no comment on the latest appeal.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, found that Leal and 50 other Mexican citizens awaiting execution in the United States weren't advised of their right under the 1963 Vienna Convention to contact their consulate when they were arrested.

Previous court decisions have rejected Leal's past appeals based on the assertion that he was denied the advice of the Mexican consulate.

The International Court had urged new hearings in courts where the 51 people were convicted to determine if consular access would have affected their verdicts and sentences.

A year later, in 2005, President George W. Bush agreed with an International Court and urged that the new hearings be held. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, subsequently overruled Bush and the impact of the International Court decision. In an appeal brought by Mexican national Jose Medellin, a court majority ruled that only Congress could require states to follow the International Court's ruling.

In June 2009, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a federal district judge was wrong when he said he had no jurisdiction in Leal's case. However, the appeals court said the Supreme Court's ruling last year ultimately shut the door to Leal's appeal.

Earlier coverage of the international treaty issues in Humberto Leal's case begins with the preceding post.

The clemency petition, case background, and other information is at Humberto Leal. 

Readers who wish to sign a petition urging clemency can do so at the link, or using the right-column Take Action box.

Rick Perry and the Vienna Convention

That's the title of Massimo Calabresi's post at Time.

Rick Perry may be a potential threat to Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection, but for now the administration is making a long-shot play to take advantage of the Texan’s potential national ambitions. At issue: whether states can execute foreigners who have been denied access to their country’s diplomats.

In theory, they can’t. The U.S. Senate ratified in 1969 a treaty called the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which requires countries to allow diplomats access to detained foreigners, as when a pinstriped consular official visits a detained American in some Third World dungeon.

George W. Bush abrogated that part of the treaty (the U.S. still abides by other parts, like treating foreign embassies as if they are outside the jurisdiction of U.S. law). When previous attempts were made to force compliance with the treaty, the Supreme Court ruled broadly that states didn’t have to abide by any treaty unless both chambers of Congress explicitly “implement” it.

Now Texas is preparing to execute on July 7 a Mexican national named Humberto Leal Garcia, Jr., who was convicted in 1994 of sexually assaulting and killing a 16-year-old girl, Adrea Sauceda, in San Antonio, but wasn’t given access to Mexican consular officials after his arrest. The administration mustered diplomats from both parties, military officers and former judges to try and convince Perry to stay Leal’s execution out of respect for the treaty and to protect the thousands of Americans detained abroad every year. In response, Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed told Reuters that “the governor would have to receive a favorable recommendation from the Board of Pardons and Paroles to consider the clemency requested.”

The Obama administration’s next move was to help draft a bill, introduced this week by Sen. Patrick Leahy, that would partially implement the Vienna convention, requiring a stay of execution in capital cases where the guilty person has been denied consular access. Leal’s lawyers are expected to seek a stay of execution from the U.S. Supreme Court until Leahy’s bill can get an up or down vote. Obama’s new solicitor general, Don Verilli, will have to consider how to weigh in on the subject.

This should all be catnip to Perry. He became a darling of the Tea Party by telling anti-tax activists at the state capitol on April 15, 2009, that Texas might secede if push came to shove with Washington. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it,” Perry said, “But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that.” And he’s been an outspoken advocate of reasserting 10th amendment states’ rights.

But the administration is hoping that now that Perry appears to have national ambitions, he might seek to build credentials as a statesman by striking a procedural compromise that keeps Leal on death row without directly flouting the treaty.

It’s a long-shot play, to say the least.

More Leal news in the next post.  Earlier coverage of Humberto Leal's case begins at the link.

National News Coverage of Leal Treaty Issue

Today's New York Times reports, "Texas Death Row Case Resonates to a Treaty."  It's by Brian Knowlton.  For those new to the issue, it's a must-read recap with new details, as well.

The death penalty case against Humberto Leal García Jr. did not seem like the sort to draw attention from a high-profile list of former U.S. diplomats, prosecutors, politicians and military men: He was convicted in Texas of raping, kidnapping and murdering a 16-year-old girl, Adria Sauceda, bludgeoning her with a heavy chunk of asphalt.

But Mr. Leal, a Mexican citizen, was not immediately informed of his right, under an international treaty signed by the United States, to seek assistance “without delay” from Mexican consular officials in navigating a confusing foreign legal system.

Such help might have been crucial for someone like Mr. Leal who, his lawyers say, had few resources and a limited understanding of his plight.

“This was an eminently defendable case, and I don’t think it would have been a capital case if he’d had decent trial counsel” from the start, said Sandra L. Babcock, a Northwestern University law professor representing Mr. Leal on behalf of the Mexican government.

With Mr. Leal’s execution approaching on July 7 in Texas, where 14 other Mexicans are also on death row, calls have mounted for Governor Rick Perry to grant a stay.

The former officials and military men urging a delay say that only by zealously enforcing terms of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations at home, with its guarantee of quick consular notification, can the United States expect similar treatment for Americans arrested abroad.

More than 6,600 Americans were arrested abroad in the year that ended on Sept. 30, by State Department count; nearly half were incarcerated. They include exchange students accused of buying drugs, diplomats caught up in protest marches and tourists who stray across borders.

“Consider a traffic accident in a foreign country,” said Mark Warren, an Ottawa-based legal researcher who specializes in consular rights issues. “In a lot of countries you get arrested, you are held, you are interrogated, you may be held incommunicado for weeks. It’s not speculative — this happens a lot — and if you don’t have access to your consulate, you have no friends, you are completely isolated.”

Observing the treaty is not “a favor to foreigners” but a “plainly compelling” national interest in protecting Americans abroad, said John B. Bellinger III, who was the top State Department lawyer under President George W. Bush and who joined other former diplomats in a plea to Mr. Perry, the Texas governor. Mr. Perry is awaiting a recommendation from the State Board of Pardons, his office said, though Texas has rarely granted clemency.

Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced legislation this week to address cases like Mr. Leal’s. The bill, which has the backing of the Obama administration, would provide for review by a federal court when a prisoner facing a death sentence claims his consular rights were violated, and calls for a stay of execution, if necessary, to allow such a review.

But it does not extend to noncapital cases, and no comparable bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives.

“This doesn’t go as far as we’d like,” said a Senate aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the final legislative language had not yet been released, “but given the urgency of the cases involving the death penalty, we felt we had to act now and this had the best chance of securing bipartisan support.”

Though the Senate ratified the Vienna Convention in 1969, its consular notification requirement was often overlooked. Mexico, citing the cases of 51 foreign citizens then on death rows in the United States, complained to the International Court of Justice in 2004. That court found that the United States was bound by the treaty, and Mr. Bush asked the states to apply it.

And:

Early assistance in murder cases also matters, said Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor: Prosecutors know that seeking the death penalty is a long, difficult, expensive process, and they carefully weigh their chances. Knowing that the accused will be well represented could tip the balance away from seeking death, he said.

With that sort of idea in mind, Mexico in 1999 created an ambitious legal assistance program to aid its citizens in capital cases. The program’s director, Gregory Kuykendall, now heads a team of 32 lawyers; in the year ending in May, Mexico spent $3.5 million on the program, according to the Sunlight Foundation, which focuses on government accountability.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the private Death Penalty Information Center, said Mexico’s active legal support had probably contributed to a decline in death penalty cases in Texas. “I think part of it is just better representation,” he said. “Mexico gives advice to other countries about how to do this.”

The State Department has held hundreds of training sessions across the country to familiarize federal, state and local law-enforcement officials with the Vienna treaty and has issued a 144-page booklet outlining the requirements, with translations in 20 languages, including Creole and Cambodian. Still, compliance is patchy. By Mr. Warren’s calculation, 80 of the 133 foreigners currently on death row in the United States say they did not receive a Vienna notification.

“That’s a failure rate of over 60 percent,” he said, “and it’s in the most serious possible cases. We’re not talking about traffic violations.”

One American who benefited while abroad from the Vienna treaty is Euna Lee, a reporter who, with a colleague, Laura Ling, was arrested in North Korea in 2009 after crossing the border from China.

Wade Goodwyn reports, "Planned Execution Puts Mexico, Texas At Odds," at NPR.  You can listen to his report at the link.

On the night of May 21, 1994, 16-year-old Adria Sauceda attended a party on the south side of San Antonio. Witnesses testified that the teenager ingested so much alcohol, cocaine and marijuana she became extremely intoxicated. A group of eight or nine young men took her into the backyard and took turns sexually assaulting her. Anyone who tried to intervene was told to back off.

Sandra Babcock, Leal's lawyer and a professor at Northwestern University Law School, says when Leal arrived at the party and learned what happened to Sauceda he "became very upset and said that he was going to take her home."

Leal says that on the ride home, Sauceda tried to get out of the car. Leal pulled over, she got out, he tried to get her back in, they argued, he pushed her and she hit her head. But Leal maintains he didn't kidnap her and he didn't rape her. And that's the crux of his defense because without those additional crimes, Leal would not have faced a capital murder charge and a death penalty conviction.

"So although there was evidence that he was with her before she died — and that he may have had some involvement in her death — the evidence that shows that he committed a sexual assault is reed thin, and the evidence that shows that he kidnapped her is even weaker," Babcock says.

Babcock accuses the public defenders assigned to defend Leal of putting on a lazy defense. And that particularly galls the government of Mexico. All parties agree that Leal, a Mexican national in Texas legally, should have been told he had a right to notify his consulate in San Antonio. The Mexican government says had it known, it would have paid for Leal to have top-flight legal representation, investigators and experts to assist his defense.

"Mexico has a long-standing tradition — internationally recognized tradition — about assisting their nationals," says Victor Uribe, head of the legal section at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C. "Of course, due to the opposition of Mexico to the death penalty, capital cases are a priority for Mexico."

And:

"It's not a favor that we do for foreigners who travel in the United States. The United States is a party to this treaty because it protects Americans when we travel abroad," says John Bellinger, a partner at Arnold & Porter in Washington. Bellinger is the former legal adviser at the State Department who handled these cases for the Bush administration.

To the surprise of both conservatives and liberals, President Bush was persuaded by this State Department's argument and ordered states to review their foreign national cases. But Texas Gov. Rick Perry said no, and to the Bush administration's chagrin, the Republican governor challenged his predecessor in federal court — and won.

"Texas has been particularly resistant to complying. I think Texas and the governor have tended to think this is a question of bowing to pressure from Washington or protecting the sovereignty of Texas from international tribunals in The Hague," Bellinger says.

Although Perry, the state attorney general's office and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles all declined to speak to NPR, Perry's staff in the past has said, "The world court has no standing in Texas and Texas is not bound by a ruling or edict from a foreign court. It's very important to remember that these individuals are on death row for killing our citizens."

Texas has already executed two Mexican nationals who weren't informed of their rights. Now Leal is on deck to be put to death the first week of July. Having witnessed the powerlessness of the International Court and the president of the United States to stop these executions, Uribe at the Mexican Embassy says they've appealed to the real power in all this: Perry.

"Congressional Action May Come Too Late to Stop Texas Execution," is by Peter Malof for Texas News.Service.

Legislation introduced this week in the U.S. Senate gives hope to some foreigners on death row in U.S. prisons - but it may come too late for Humberto Leal Garcia, a Mexican scheduled for execution next month in Texas.

The Consular Notification Compliance Act would ensure that courts follow an international law that says people arrested on foreign soil are entitled to assistance from their home countries. Leal's lawyers are filing motions today in federal court, hoping to delay his execution so that he may benefit from the legislation if and when it becomes law.

Christopher Durocher, government-affairs counsel at The Constitution Project, supports the measure, adding that consular access is critical if justice is to prevail for foreign nationals.

"When you're brought into a foreign criminal-justice system, your lack of understanding about how that system works - to navigate that system effectively - can really have a negative impact on your ability to defend yourself."

Durocher says he's fearful that if the United States doesn't uphold its treaty obligations, other countries will view consular access for Americans as optional. More than 6,600 U.S. citizens were arrested abroad last year.

Leal is a perfect example of someone whose conviction deserves review, Durocher says, because his lack of consular access clearly impacted his ability to receive a fair trial. His execution, Durocher adds, would not come as welcome news to the 172 other signatories of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

Jordan Smith writes, "Will Legislation Save Humberto Leal?" for the Austin Chronicle.

Vermont Democratic U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy on June 14 filed a bill that would ensure U.S. compliance with the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which in part guarantees foreign nationals abroad access to consular officials. Advocates representing Texas death row inmate Humberto Leal hope the legislation will save their client's life.

At issue is whether foreign nationals who get in trouble with the law in the U.S. are afforded the opportunity to communicate with home-country officials. Leal is one of the more than four dozen Mexican nationals on death row in the U.S. whose cases were brought to the UN's International Court of Justice in 2004. In that case, Mexico complained that in each instance the accused was not given the opportunity to communicate with Mexican consular officials. The ICJ ultimately ruled in Mexico's favor and said that the cases should be reviewed. Then-President George W. Bush penned a memo asking the U.S. courts to give effect to the ICJ ruling, but the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled that state courts were not required to do so absent an act of Congress. After several years, that legislation was finally filed this week. "Compliance with our consular notification obligations is not a question of partisan interest," Leahy said in a press release. "Given the long history of bipartisan support for the [Vienna Convention], there should be unanimous support for this legislation to uphold our treaty obligations. A failure to act places Americans at risk."

That is, of course, one of the issues here: If the U.S. continues to ignore the consular notification provisions as it pertains to foreign nationals in the States, that makes it more likely that the rights of U.S. citizens abroad will also be ignored. Since the ICJ decision in 2004, Texas has executed three foreign nationals; unless the state acts to halt Leal's execution, he will become the fourth – and the first since Congress has made a move to require compliance with the Convention, and the ICJ ruling.

Earlier coverage of Humberto Leal's case begins at the link.

The clemency petition, case background, and other information is at Humberto Leal. 

Readers who wish to sign a petition urging clemency can do so at the link, or using the right-column Take Action box.

Commentary on the Leahy Legislation

Ginny Sloan posts, "Proposed Legislation Providing Consular Access Holds Lives in the Balance," at Huffington Post.  She's the president of the Constitution Project.

Consular access also enhances the truth-seeking function at the heart of American justice, and provides an indispensable protection for foreign nationals who are unfamiliar with the U.S. criminal justice system. "Mandatory Justice: The Death Penalty Revisited," the 2005 report (PDF) of The Constitution Project's Death Penalty Committee -- a bipartisan committee comprising supporters and opponents of the death penalty -- concluded that "the policies underlying the [Vienna Convention] are similar to those underlying the right to counsel guaranteed by the United States Constitution." The diverse committee thus called on all jurisdictions to fully comply with the Vienna Convention.

The Consular Notification Compliance Act has significant implications for the many foreign nationals currently on death row, such as Humberto Leal Garcia, a Mexican national who is scheduled for execution by the state of Texas in less than a month. Mr. Leal was never told that he had a right to contact the Mexican consulate for legal assistance. If the legislation passes, it would give Mr. Leal the opportunity to petition a federal court to review his case and, if appropriate, order a new trial or sentencing hearing. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the act will come up for a vote in the Senate or House before Mr. Leal's July 7th execution date, so it will be up to Texas Gov. Rick Perry to grant Mr. Leal a reprieve pending a vote on the proposed bill.

Given the life and death stakes, a diverse group of former military officials, diplomats, judges and prosecutors have petitioned Governor Perry to hold off on executing Mr. Leal until the legislation is considered. This week, attorneys for Mr. Leal will file a federal habeas petition and a motion for stay of execution in the federal district court, arguing that Mr. Leal has a due process right to remain alive so that he can benefit from the legislative remedy contained in the Consular Notification Compliance Act. Now, the whole world will watch to see if Texas, and the United States, will honor the rights promised by the Vienna Convention.

At Opinio Juris, Duncan Hollis posts, "Proposed Legislation Seeks VCCR Compliance by the United States."

Those who have followed the cases relating to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) here in the United States and at the ICJ know that the United States has a compliance problem. The United States does not provide the ‘judicial review and reconsideration’ remedy that the ICJ has indicated is required in the event a violation of an individual’s rights under Article 36 of the VCCR, and the Supreme Court has indicated that the President alone cannot order U.S. states to provide those remedies.  Since 2008, many commentators have suggested that the solution to this problem lies with Congress. Earlier attempts to enact legislation authorizing the necessary procedural steps to put the United States in compliance have fallen short.  Senator Patrick Leahy, however, is ready to try again in light of a pending execution of a Mexican national in Texas (apparently scheduled for July 7), which also seems certain to revive international attention to this issue.

"U.S. Notables Urge Texas to Delay Mexican’s Execution," is the Latin American Herald Tribune report.

Retired U.S. military brass, diplomats, politicians and a former FBI chief urged the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to delay the execution of a Mexican national convicted of murder, arguing that the case needs to be reviewed.

Humberto Leal Garcia, a 38-year-old native of Monterrey, is scheduled to be executed July 7.

He was sentenced to death in 1995 by a Texas court for the kidnapping, rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl.

Without disputing Leal’s guilt, the Mexican government recently asked Texas to commute the death sentence, citing both humanitarian concerns and the failure of Texan authorities to respect foreign suspects’ right to consular assistance under the Vienna Convention.

“Prompt knowledge of and access to our fellow-citizens held in foreign jails ensures that U.S. consular officers can help them obtain legal assistance, monitor their treatment, and connect them to family and friends back home,” retired military brass and diplomats said in a letter to the Texas parole board.

“The safety and well-being of Americans abroad is endangered by the U.S. maintaining the double standard of protesting denials of consular notification and access to its own citizens while simultaneously failing to comply with its obligation to remedy identical violations,” they said.

The board has received similar appeals from figures such as former FBI Director William Sessions and a former Texas governor, Mark White.

The International Court of Justice ruled on March 31, 2004, that Texas had violated the rights of Leal and other Mexican nationals, instructing U.S. authorities to review the death sentences of 51 Mexicans.

Texas, however, has refused to suspend the executions of foreigners, claiming that no international court’s ruling may replace state laws and the federal government has no authority to order the states to review such matters.

Earlier coverage of the Leal case begins with the preceding post.  Related posts are in the foreign citizen index.

Federal Legislation Filed Over Consular Notification Failures

Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has issued a news release, "Leahy Renews Effort To Bring U.S. Into Compliance With International Consular Notification Treaty."

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced legislation Tuesday to address a long-standing international concern regarding U.S. compliance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR), a key treaty providing access for citizens detained abroad to their consulates.

The Leahy-authored Consular Notification Compliance Act will give jurisdiction to federal courts to review the cases of foreign nationals currently on death row in the United States who did not receive consular access as required by the VCCR. It includes those individuals covered by a 2004 decision by the International Court of Justice, which held that the U.S. must review the convictions and death sentences of more than 50 Mexican nationals who had not been notified of their right to consular access.  The legislation would also clarify for future cases that courts must ensure that all foreign nationals charged with a capital offense are informed of their right to contact their consulate.  More than 100 foreign nationals from more than 30 countries are currently on death row in the United States.

“Each year, thousands of Americans are detained abroad while they study, travel, work, and serve in the military.  From the moment they are detained, their safety and well-being depends on the ability of United States consular officials to meet with them, monitor their treatment, help them obtain legal assistance, and connect them to family back home,” said Leahy.

“That access is protected by the consular notification provisions of the VCCR, but it only functions effectively if every country meets its obligations under the treaty – including the United States.  The Consular Notification Compliance Act will bring the United States one step closer to compliance with the convention.”

Leahy chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the State Department and Foreign Operations.  The need to protect Americans overseas by bringing the U.S. into compliance with the treaty has garnered support from retired members of the military, former diplomats, retired judges and prosecutors.

Government efforts to address this problem began during the George W. Bush administration, when President Bush issued an executive memorandum directing the state courts to provide review of the convictions and death sentences.  The executive order was challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Court held that the Executive Branch did not have the authority to compel the state courts to act.  The Court held that Congress must pass legislation instead.

“Compliance with our consular notification obligations is not a question of partisan interest,” Leahy said.  “Given the long history of bipartisan support for the VCCR, there should be unanimous support for this legislation to uphold our treaty obligations.  A failure to act places Americans at risk.”

The VCCR was negotiated during the Kennedy administration, and ratified during the Nixon administration.  The U.S. government has cited the VCCR in seeking access to Americans detained abroad.  According to the Department of State, more than 6600 Americans were arrested abroad in fiscal year 2010.  More than 3000 U.S. citizens were incarcerated abroad in the same time period.

The text of the Consular Notification Compliance Act is available online.

Leahy also spoke on the Senate floor on the introduction of the Consular Notification Compliance Act.  Here's an excerpt:

Today, I am introducing the Consular Notification Compliance Act.  This legislation will help bring the United States into compliance with its obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) and is critical to ensuring the protection of Americans traveling overseas. 

Each year, thousands of Americans are arrested and imprisoned when they are in foreign countries studying, working, serving the military, or traveling.  From the moment they are detained, their safety and well-being depends, often entirely, on the ability of United States consular officials to meet with them, monitor their treatment, help them obtain legal assistance, and connect them to family back home.  That access is protected by the consular notification provisions of the VCCR, but it only functions effectively if every country meets its obligations under the treaty – including the United States. 

Unfortunately, in some instances, the United States has not been meeting those obligations.  There are currently more than 100 foreign nationals on death row in the United States, most of whom were never told of their right to contact their consulate and their consulate was never notified of their arrest, trial, conviction, or sentence.  There are many other foreigners in U.S. prisons awaiting trial for non-capital crimes, some facing life sentences, who were similarly denied consular access.  This failure to comply with our treaty obligations undercuts our ability to protect Americans abroad and deeply damages our image as a country that abides by its promises and the rule of law.  It would also be completely unacceptable to us if our citizens were treated in this manner.

The Consular Notification Compliance Act seeks to bring the United States one step closer to compliance with the convention.  It is not perfect.  It focuses only on the most serious cases – those involving the death penalty – but it is a significant step in the right direction and we need to work together to pass it quickly.  Texas is posed to execute the next foreign national affected by this failure to comply with the treaty on July 7, 2011.  He was not notified of his right to consular assistance, and the Government of Mexico has expressed grave concerns about the case.  We do not want this execution to be interpreted as a sign that the United States does not take its treaty obligations seriously.  That message puts American lives at risk.

The Government of Great Britain has expressed similar concerns about a case involving a British citizen facing the death penalty here, who was denied consular access. 

The bill I am introducing would allow foreign nationals who have been convicted and sentenced to death to ask a court to review their cases and determine if the failure to provide consular notification led to an unfair conviction or sentence.

Earlier coverage of the case of Humberto Leal begins at the link.

Honor This Treaty

That's the heading for an editorial in today's Washington Post.  It's titled, "Why the U.S. should allow arrested foreigners to contact their consulates."  An extended excerpt:

Humberto Leal Jr. is scheduled to be put to death by the state of Texas next month for the 1994 murder of a 16-year-old girl. Like so many cases involving capital punishment, Mr. Leal’s has generated controversy, but not for the typical reasons.

Mr. Leal is a Mexican national. When he was arrested, Texas officials failed to advise him of his right to communicate with his country’s embassy as required by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The United States, Mexico and some 160 other countries are signatories to the convention. Mr. Leal is one of roughly 40 Mexican nationals who were not advised about consular access and who sit on death row in this country.

Mexico filed a grievance on behalf of its nationalsand prevailed in 2004 before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the judicial arm of the United Nations. The ICJ concluded that the United States was obligated to comply with the treaty and that it should review these cases to determine whether the defendants had been harmed by the lack of notification.

Texas, where the majority of these inmates are held, balked. Three years ago, the state executed Jose Ernesto Medellin, another Mexican national who was not informed of his right to consular access and who was denied additional review. The state is likely to take the same approach in the Leal case. “Here, in Texas, if you commit terrible and heinous crimes you’re going to pay the ultimate price,” says Katherine Cesinger, press secretary to Gov. Rick Perry (R).

This misses the point entirely. This is not about coddling criminals nor is it a referendum on the death penalty. It is about a country’s obligation to honor its treaty commitments. The United States must comply with the Vienna Convention — and demonstrate good faith in addressing past mistakes — if U.S. citizens abroad are to be afforded the same rights and protections.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) is expected to introduce legislation as soon as this week to provide meaningful review in federal court for those denied consular access. The legislation should be narrowly tailored and mandate that the legal proceedings focus solely on whether denial of access seriously prejudiced an inmate’s ability to defend against charges. The bar for success should be high, and only those who can provide compelling evidence of such harm should be allowed a new trial or benefit from a reduced sentence.

Earlier coverage of the case of Humberto Leal begins at the link.

Austin American-Statesman on the Leal Case

The Statesman editorial is, "Execution case important to international relations."  It appeared in the Saturday issue.

The Golden Rule of life also applies to the tricky business of international relations. What we do to non-Americans in our country we can reasonably expect to be done unto Americans in other countries.

It is for that reason that Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles — both in the uncommon position of making a decision with international impact — should commute or postpone the death sentence of Humberto Leal, a Mexican raised in Texas, scheduled to die July 7 for the 1994 murder of Adria Sauceda, 16, in Bexar County.

The key issue in this case at this point is not whether Leal committed the crime. Also not central now are the circumstances involving Leal, including sexual abuse by a priest, a challenging family history and other factors that, though significant, fail to add up to justification for murder. They could, however, count as mitigating factors that argue for a life sentence.

It's what happened after Sauceda was killed that is at issue. More specifically, it's what didn't happen. Despite the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations requirements, Leal was not informed of his right to contact Mexican officials to seek legal assistance. Records indicate that he was not aware of that right until told about it by a fellow death row inmate.

Instead of getting legal help from Mexican consular officials, who have a track record of providing quality legal representation for Mexicans facing the death penalty in the U.S., Leal was represented by a court-appointed team that included a lawyer who twice had his license suspended.

Back in 2004, the International Court of Justice said Leal was entitled to a hearing to determine the extent of harm he suffered as a result of the lack of consular access. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling has said the U.S. must comply with the decision by the international court. Texas, citing state law, said no such hearing could take place. Congress now is poised to consider legislation, to be filed in coming weeks, that would establish a procedure for a federal court hearing on the extent of harm caused to Leal because he was not advised of his right to contact Mexican officials.

And:

Sandra L. Babcock, a Northwestern University law professor representing Leal, said he would not have been convicted if he had received proper consular assistance. We have no way of knowing that. But there is no arguing with Babcock's contention that "with consular access, Mr. Leal would have had competent lawyers and expert assistance that would have transformed the quality of his defense."

And, as she noted, Mexican officials have developed expertise in helping Mexicans facing the death penalty in the U.S.

"It really is a very modest remedy we are talking about," Babcock said.

Modest, indeed, but with important international ramifications.

"Franciscans request execution halt," is the San Antonio Express-News report written by Michelle Mondo.  It also ran on Saturday.

The list of those calling for Texas to stay the July execution of Humberto Leal Jr. grew on Friday when the Franciscan Order and organizations representing victims of sexual abuse by priests sent letters to the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole.

The letters from the abuse-victims organizations, including the San Antonio chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and the Franciscans call for a stay or commutation of Leal's sentence so the Catholic Church can investigate the allegations he made against Father Federico Fernandez.

The allegation by Leal, 38, that Fernandez sexually abused him when he was 10 or 11 and attending St. Clare's Catholic Church was made for the first time in a recent petition for a reprieve or commutation Leal's attorney sent to the board and Gov. Rick Perry.

Leal was sentenced to die for the rape and bludgeoning death of Adria Sauceda, 16, whose naked body was found on May 21, 1994, on a dirt road not far from a party that she and Leal both attended. The execution is scheduled for July 7.

Franciscan Provincial Minister William Spencer said in a letter that he needed to add his voice to those calling for a reprieve because, he said, the sex-abuse claim could have merit. A spokesman for the San Antonio Archdiocese has said Leal's allegation would be investigated.

Fernandez, a San Antonio priest, was charged in 1988 with molesting two young boys but the charges were later dropped and a lawsuit was settled out of court.

Earlier coverage of the Leal case begins at the link.

Sandra Babcock on the Leal Case

"Texas Execution Could Risk Americans' Safety Abroad," is the title of her post at Huffington Post.  Babcock is an attorney for Humberto Leal and and a clinical professor at Northwestern University Law School.  Here's the beginning:

This week, prominent bipartisan groups, including former U.S. diplomats, retired military leaders, former judges and prosecutors, and organizations representing Americans abroad called on the Texas Governor and Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant a stay of execution to Humberto Leal Garcia, a Mexican national on death row who is scheduled to be executed on July 7. These are not the usual suspects who call for clemency in a death penalty case; in fact, many of them undoubtedly support capital punishment. What unites this diverse group is their concern that if Mr. Leal is executed in violation of a binding judgment of the International Court of Justice, other nations will be emboldened to violate the consular rights of U.S. citizens arrested in foreign countries.

Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a treaty ratified by 173 nations, establishes that whenever the authorities arrest a foreign national, they must advise her that she has the right to have her consulate notified of her detention. This applies to foreign nationals arrested in the United States as well as to Americans detained abroad. American foreign exchange students, missionaries and others who have been wrongly detained overseas often say that the assistance of the consulate is more important than the advice of a foreign lawyer. American consulates can help them contact family members, obtain evidence back home, and assist in obtaining competent legal representation.

But when Texas authorities arrested Humberto Leal García, a Mexican national with no prior criminal convictions, they tried, convicted, and sentenced him to death without ever informing him of his consular rights and without notifying the Mexican consulate of his plight. On March 31, 2004, the International Court of Justice held that the United States had breached its obligations under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention in the case of Mr. Leal and 50 other Mexican nationals on death row. The ICJ held that, as a remedy for the violations of Article 36, the United States must provide judicial "review and reconsideration" of Mr. Leal's conviction and sentence to determine whether, and how, he was prejudiced by the violation of his consular rights.

Earlier coverage of Leal's case begins with the preceding post.

At the Nexus of Abuse and Execution

That's the title of Brandi Grissom's must-read report on the case of Humberto Leal.  It's published in today's New York Times and Texas Tribune, and examines a different aspect of Leal's request for clemency.

St. Clare’s is a small church with a tight-knit congregation in this impoverished south side neighborhood, a place where neighbors come for a respite from the gritty streets.

But in the 1980s, it became a place of fear and shame for children who allege they were victims of sexual abuse by a prominent priest.

One of those alleged victims is Humberto Leal, a death row inmate who in 1995 was convicted of raping and bludgeoning to death a 16-year-old girl. His attorneys this week filed a clemency petition on his behalf. They asked Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to stay his execution and allow him to testify both as a victim and a witness of abuses allegedly perpetrated decades ago by Father Federico Fernandez, who served at St. Clare’s from 1983 to 1988.

Now, others who attended St. Clare’s have been spurred by Mr. Leal’s recent revelations to come forward and report similar abuse. They hope that by telling their stories they can stop the July 7 execution of Mr. Leal, and spur law enforcement to investigate and prosecute Father Fernandez.

The priest, who currently works in a church in Bogotá, Colombia, denies ever abusing anyone.

Church authorities in San Antonio removed him from the parish and sent him to New Mexico for treatment in 1988 after a grand jury indicted him for sexually abusing two other boys. In statements to police, the boys described multiple occasions when Father Fernandez schemed to get them alone and groped them. After the indictment, the boys’ family reached a settlement with the church, and the young men decided not to testify. Charges against Father Fernandez were dropped, and terms of the settlement were sealed.

Even before Father Fernandez arrived at St. Clare’s, he had been accused of sexual misconduct. In 1983, San Antonio police charged him with exposing himself in public, though the charges were eventually dropped. And since Mr. Leal’s revelation, others who attended St. Clare’s have reported similar abuse.

Under the shadow of a spindly tree in St. Clare’s parking lot — the modest structure where he was baptized and later married — a mild-mannered 44-year-old in work boots described how the priest who had been his boyhood role model nearly shattered his faith.

“I wanted to give myself to the church, and I got something bad,” said the man, who is not being identified because he is a victim of sexual abuse.

At 15, he wanted to be a priest. He faithfully attended Bible classes at St. Clare’s. He grew close to the priests there, and in particular Father Fernandez. It was Father Fernandez, he said, who took him into a room alone and then stripped naked in front of him.

“I was just played for a fool,” he said. But now he hopes that exposing his pain can help relieve someone else’s. “This person killed persons in their heart and their faith, and he gets away with it.”

And:

The head of the international order of Franciscan priests wrote to state officials on Mr. Leal’s behalf. Father William Spencer wrote that he could not confirm Mr. Leal’s account of abuse, but given Father Fernandez’s history, it raises the possibility that jurors who sentenced Mr. Leal to death were unaware of mitigating evidence that could have persuaded them to imprison him for life instead. Father Spencer did not return calls requesting comment.

Earlier coverage of Humberto Leal's case begins at the link; more in the next post.

The clemency petition, case background, and other information is at Humberto Leal. 

Readers who wish to sign a petition urging clemency can do so at the link, or using the right-column Take Action box.

Additional Coverage of the Leal Clemency Petition

Today's San Antonio Express-News reports, "Texas asked to hold off executing killer of S.A. teen."  It's written by Michelle Mondo.

A petition filed Tuesday to stay the execution of Humberto Leal Jr., a Mexican national convicted here for the rape and murder of a San Antonio teenager, cites the international implications of the case and was accompanied by letters of support from high-ranking U.S. government leaders, including judges and retired military leaders.

The request for a reprieve or commutation of Leal's scheduled July 7 execution was the latest round in a legal battle stemming from a 2004 ruling at the International Court of Justice in The Hague that said neither Leal nor 50 other Mexican citizens on death row nationwide had been told they could contact Mexican consulate representatives when they were arrested.

The remedy for that breach of their rights, the world court determined, was to grant new hearings to the condemned to determine if consular access would have affected the outcome of their capital murder trials.

“It's not just about one person,” said Sandra Babcock, his attorney. “If (Leal's) execution goes forward the effects are going to reverberate far beyond the borders of Texas and far beyond the United States.”

Babcock, a law professor at Northwestern University, said U.S. citizens need the same right when traveling abroad. If U.S. authorities don't abide by the treaty that established it, those Americans — including members of the military, tourists, missionaries and business people — will be at risk, say support letters sent with the petition.

That problem has attracted bipartisan attention at the highest levels of government. Then-President George W. Bush, an ardent supporter of the death penalty, in 2005 tried to force states to hold hearings on consular access in each case.

And:

He has lost previous appeals citing incompetent attorneys. Babcock said his attorneys failed to counter forensic claims and didn't offer mitigating evidence that included an abusive background.

Her petition includes an allegation never mentioned in earlier appeals, that he was raped as a boy by Father Federico Fernandez at St. Clare Catholic Church in San Antonio. Fernandez was indicted in 1988 in the abuse of two boys, but the case was dismissed and a lawsuit was settled out of court.

Leal had never disclosed the abuse to anyone, Babcock said. Pat Rodgers, spokesman for the Archdiocese of San Antonio, said the allegation would be investigated.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles will review the petition and make a recommendation to Gov. Rick Perry.

Tony Mauro posts, "Coalition Seeks Clemency for Mexican Man on Texas Death Row," at the BLT and Law.com.

With the backing of former judges, prosecutors and diplomats from across the country, lawyers are asking Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other state officials to delay the scheduled July 7 execution of Humberto Leal Garcia.  The case echoes the dispute involved in the 2008 Supreme Court decision in Medellin v. Texas, and also implicates pending action in Congress.

Leal is a Mexican national arrested in 1994 on suspicion of murder who was never told that he had a right under an international treaty to contact the Mexican consulate for legal assistance. It was not until he was on death row that a fellow inmate gave him the address of the Mexican consulate.

Without the legal assistance he might have gotten through the Mexican government, Leal received "disgracefully inadequate legal representation," acccording to the clemency petition, and was convicted on "junk science" evidence that has since been discredited. At his sentencing hearing, Leal's lawyers failed to present any mitigating evidence including his mental disabilities, brain damage and sexual abuse as a child. "He never stood a chance," said Northwestern University School of Law professor Sandra Babcock, Leal's current attorney and author of the petition sent to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles Tuesday.

But the broader issue in Leal's case -- his rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations -- is what attracted the nationwide coalition of supporters. If Leal is executed without any examination of the unfairness of his failure to be notified of his consular rights, they argue, then foreign governments may retaliate and not honor the consular rights of U.S. citizens arrested in other countries.

Because foreign nationals may be unfamiliar with the U.S. legal system or unable to secure adequate representation, receiving the help of a consulate "can mean the difference between conviction and acquittal, or between life and death," said the group of former judges and prosecutors in a letter to Perry and the pardons board. "It is appropriate to ensure that our country complies with the laws to which it has obligated itself, and to ensure that those laws apply to our own citizens as well." Among those signing this statement were former FBI director and district court judge William Sessions, former federal appeals judges Shirley Hufstedler, John Gibbons and Nathaniel Jones, and former Texas attorney general and governor Mark White.

And:

A bill is expected to be introduced soon in the Senate -- with the backing of the State Department and Justice Department -- that would provide for court hearings to review the cases of foreign nationals whose consular rights were violated.

Babcock said the congressional response has momentum, after years of delay caused by related and unrelated reasons. "Here we are, the most powerful country in the world, and we can't figure out how to comply with the law." She also said the Leal case poses a starker example of the importance of the consular rights treaty than the Medellin case did, because having competent counsel through the Mexican government clearly would have made a difference for Leal. "This would not have been a capital case. It was a defensible case," she said, because of the flawed evidence introduced at trial and the failure of counsel to assert mitigating factors at sentencing.

More broadly, she said the consular issue, once it is explained, gains wide support because of the possible repercussions for U.S. citizens if the U.S. does not honor the treaty.

"Protests mount to block mexican’s execution in Texas," is the title of Tom Ramstack's AHN post.

An international dispute is arising from the planned execution July 7 of a Mexican citizen whose government questions whether proper procedures were followed in sentencing the convicted murderer.

Mexico’s ambassador delivered a request this week to Texas Gov. Rick Perry asking him to delay the execution until a review is completed of the sentencing procedures.

The Mexican government does not deny “the horrific nature of the crime” committed by Humberto Leal Garcia, the letter from Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan says.

However, the Mexicans want to ensure Leal was given legal representation required by a ruling of the International Court of Justice.

Leal, 38, was sentenced to death for the May 21, 1994 rape and murder of 16-year-old Adra Sauceda in San Antonio, Texas. He is one of 51 Mexicans on death row in United States.

In a 2004 ruling, the International Court of Justice determined that the United States was not granting death penalty convicts from Mexico their right to legal assistance by their own country.

The international court said the United States was violating the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

Leal’s attorneys argue he would not have been sentenced to death if he was given an opportunity for support and legal advice from his own country.

ThompsonReuters daily Summary Judgements contains, "Clemency sought for Texas death row inmate."

Humberto Leal Garcia, a Mexican national convicted of murder in 1994, is scheduled to die on July 7. But a group of former judges, prosecutors and diplomats from across the United States have written to Gov. Rick Perry asking him to the delay the execution. Leal wasn't told until he was already on death row that he had the right, under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to seek legal help from the Mexican consulate. The clemency petition from the judges, prosecutors and diplomats argues that without the help of his government, Leal got "disgracefully inadequate legal representation." And their fear, Legal Times reported, is that if Leal is executed other countries may retaliate by depriving American citizens arrested abroad of their right to seek consular help.

The Lincoln Tribune of Lincolnton, NC, has "Mexicans blast execution of criminal alien murderer in Texas."

Ealier coverage of Leal's case for clemency begins at the link.  The clemency petition, case background, and other information is at Humberto Leal.  Readers who wish to sign a petition can do so at the link.

News Coverage of Leal Clemency Filing

The Guardian reports, "US politicians and lawyers protest against death penalty for Mexican man."  It's written by Ed Pilkington in New York.

Top military leaders, lawyers, diplomats and former government officials have joined forces to protest against the pending execution of a Mexican citizen in Texas which they say would be in breach of international law and could put American lives abroad at risk.

The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has vowed to press ahead on 7 July with the execution of Humberto Leal Garcia, despite condemnation across the political and legal realms. Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama have, while in office, opposed the execution, and Congress is likely to soon introduce legislation designed to make such a judicial killing impossible.

The almost blanket condemnation of Texas's position stems from the fact that Leal was prosecuted without the benefit of consular support and advice from the Mexican authorities, as is required under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. He was found guilty in 1994 of sexually assaulting and murdering a 16-year-old girl in San Antonio.

But the Mexican authorities were never informed of his arrest, and at his trial he was assigned court-appointed lawyers whom his current attorneys say were unprepared and incompetent. One of the trial lawyers has twice been suspended from practising law and reprimanded two other times for failing to carry out his obligations to his clients, according to the attorneys.

In a clemency petition lodged with the Texas governor on Tuesday, Leal's current lawyers argue that had Leal had consular access, he could have avoided conviction, let alone a death penalty. "The complete failure of Mr Leal's attorneys to represent their client in any meaningful way deprived him of his chance for a fair trial," the petition says.

Joint letters have been sent to Perry's office to accompany the petition, whose signatories include prominent figures in the worlds of law, diplomacy and the military.

One letter comes from former US diplomats and top officials in the state department, among whom are the top legal adviser to the state department under Bush, John Bellinger, and the former US ambassadors to the UN and Nato, Thomas Pickering and William Taft respectively.

In their joint letter, the diplomats argue that by failing to honour the rights of foreign nationals arrested in the US, Texas is putting at risk those of American nationals arrested abroad. "We believe that continued non-compliance will surely alienate this nation from its allies."

Top retired military figures including Rear Admiral Don Guter, Brigadier James Cullen and Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson warn in a separate letter that, by disregarding the Vienna Convention, Texas is also putting at risk military personnel stationed overseas. "As retired military leaders, we understand that the preservation of consular access protections is especially important for US military personnel, who when serving our country overseas are at greater risk of being arrested by a foreign government."

And:

Leal is one of 40 or so Mexican nationals in a similar legal trap; individuals who are awaiting execution in the US, despite having consular access withheld at the time of their arrest and trial. Under the Vienna Convention, those facing prosecution in a foreign country must be given regular access to their consular representatives.

Though that legal point has been pressed by the US on many occasions in cases where American citizens have been arrested abroad, Texas has decided to press ahead with the execution regardless.

Jordan Smith writes, "Is Texas Breaking the Law?"  It's posted at the Austin Chronicle.

If the state of Texas goes through with the planned July 7 execution of Humberto Leal it will be committing an "irreparable breach of international law," attorney Sandra Babcock argues in a clemency petition filed this week with the Board of Pardons and Paroles. Leal was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1994 kidnap, rape and murder of 16-year-old Adria Sauceda in Bexar County. Among the problems with Leal's case – and there are many, including bad lawyering at the trial level, reliance on junk forensic science, and the state's current opposition to performing new DNA testing – is the fact that Leal is a Mexican national who was never afforded consular access after his arrest, in keeping with international law codified in the Vienna Convention, to which the U.S. is a signatory. Leal had no prior convictions, suffered from brain damage and resultant learning disabilities, and had previously been sexually abused by his Catholic parish priest. In short, Babcock argues in the petition to the BPP, he is "precisely the sort of person Article 36 of the Vienna Convention was meant to protect." But he was never afforded that access. Instead, writes Babcock, it wasn't until Leal arrived on death row "that he received the address of his consulate – from another inmate."

This is no small matter, since Mexico does not have the death penalty – and it is not the first time the issue of denying foreign nationals access to consular advice has come up in Texas. In 2004, Mexico took to the International Court of Justice it's claim that the U.S. had violated the Convention in the cases of 54 Mexicans – including Leal and then-Texas death row inmate José Medellín – facing death in the States. Medellín was convicted and sentenced to die for the gang rape and murder of two Houston teens, Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peña. He argued that his case should be overturned because he was never notified of his right to contact the Mexican consulate – in fact, like Leal after him, Medellín didn't learn of that right until he'd already been in prison for four years. The ICJ sided with Mexico in the case, and then-President George W. Bush asked the Texas courts to take heed of the court's ruling. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals did not, and in 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court said that state courts did not have to abide the decision, clearing the way for Texas to execute Medellín &ndash and others like him. In order for the ruling to have effect in state courts, the Supremes ruled, Congress would have to act.

With the support of the Obama Administration, that's on the horizon, argues Babcock, which would mean that executing Leal now would again deny him due process. "While the Executive and Legislative Branches are closer than ever to fully implementing the [ICJ] decision, their efforts will come too late for Mr. Leal unless [the BPP] recommends a reprieve or commutation," Babcock writes in Leal's petition. "The immensity of the interests at stake – Mr. Leal's life, and the treaty obligations of the United States – should not be taken lightly." In the meantime, however, since the ICJ ruling in March 2004, the state has executed four foreign nationals, including Medellín. Currently, there are 23 foreign nationals on Texas' death row, including 14 Mexican nationals.

And:

Babcock, a professor of law at Northwestern University, asks that the BPP recommend that Gov. Rick Perry either commute Leal's death sentence or recommend that he extend a 180-day reprieve in order to provide Congress the opportunity to pass legislation that would give effect to the ICJ decision before the state takes the life of another foreign national.

Earlier coverage of the Leal case begins at the link.  The clemency petition, case background, and other information is at Humberto Leal.

David Von Drehle on the Leal Case

"Cut Off from His Country, Another Foreign National Faces Execution in Texas," is the title of Von Drehle's post at Time.

Two U.S. Presidents, the State Department and the Justice Department, an assortment of diplomats, military brass, and former judges all want the State of Texas to delay the scheduled July 7 execution of Humberto Leal Garcia Jr. But that may not be enough.

Leal was convicted of the 1994 sexual assault and murder of 16-year-old Adrea Sauceda in San Antonio. In subsequent appeals, Leal argued that his court-appointed trial attorney was incompetent — the man twice has his law license suspended — but given the savage nature of the crime, and incriminating statements by Leal and his brother, it’s not clear that a better lawyer would have made a difference.

So why have figures from former FBI Director William Sessions to former U.S. Ambassador to the United National Thomas Pickering taken an interest in Leal’s case? Because he is one of more than 50 foreign nationals sentenced to death in the U.S. without having access to their consulates.

A petition filed on Tuesday with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, supported by letters from groups of retired generals, judges and ambassadors, argues that Americans abroad will be put at risk if the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations is not honored. Leal’s attorney, Sandra Babcock of the Northwestern University School of Law, asks the Board to recommend clemency for her client — or at least delay his execution long enough for Congress to pass a law mandating new trials for the foreign nationals.

“There can be little doubt that if the government of Mexico had been allowed access to Mr. Leal in a timely manner, he would not now be facing execution for a capital murder he did not commit,” Babcock writes—adding a claim of innocence on top of the plea to respect the Vienna treaty. “Mexico has had an extensive program for monitoring and providing assistance to its citizens facing the death penalty in the United States since the late 1980s.

And:

In 2004, the ICJ found in favor of Mexico and ordered the U.S. to grant hearings to the Mexican nationals. Then-President Bush issued an order to comply with the ruling, but Texas — in the case of Jose Ernesto Medellin — argued that Bush lacked the power to interfere in a state proceeding. In 2008, the Supreme Court agreed, and Medellin was executed.

The high court held open the possibility that an act of Congress could compel the states to give new hearings to the inmates. The Obama Administration is backing a measure to do just that, by withholding certain federal funds from states that do not comply. But the failure to pass a budget has put that legislation on ice.

“For Texas to proceed with [Leal’s] execution prior to full compliance with these treaty obligations would endanger the interests of American citizens and the United States around the world,” the diplomats write in their letter to the pardons board.

It may be a long shot to expect the board and Texas Gov. Rick Perry to halt Leal’s execution after permitting Medellin’s execution under similar circumstances with a Texan in the White House. The Supreme Court concluded that the ICJ judgment “constitutes an international law obligation on the United States,” but in the Lone Star State that collides with a simpler dictum: Don’t Mess With Texas.

Earlier coverage of the Leal case begins at the link.

Humberto Leal Clemency Petition Filed

Humberto Leal's clemency petition is available in Adobe .pdf format.

"Bipartisan Agreement: TX Execution Threatens Safety of Americans Abroad," is the title of Peter Malof's report for Texas News Service.

The planned execution of a Mexican man next month in Texas is sparking bipartisan appeals to Governor Rick Perry. The 1994 prosecution of Humberto Leal Garcia violated international law, according to an array of retired military leaders, judges, and diplomats, who say Leal was deprived of assistance from his government until after his conviction.

His attorney, Sandra Babcock, is filing a reprieve petition today. She believes the issue is bigger than justice for one man. When the U.S. violates its treaties, she says, it encourages other countries to do the same, putting hundreds of thousands of Americans at risk of languishing helplessly in foreign jails.

"U.S. service members, missionaries, teachers, businessmen. Really there are so many different people - in addition to those of us who just like to vacation abroad - who really depend on this lifeline of consular assistance."

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that foreigners are, in fact, protected by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, signed by 173 countries, but that Congress needs to amend domestic law to match provisions of the treaty.

Such legislation is expected to be introduced soon. The question is, will Leal be put to death before statutes require review of his conviction?

Babcock, who is a professor of law at Northwestern University in Chicago, says if the execution proceeds as scheduled on July 7, it would send a message that the U.S. picks and chooses which international commitments to honor.

"And if we do that, then what incentive does any country have to enter into a treaty with us about nuclear arms, business negotiations, cooperation in the fight against global terror?"

Consular assistance, Babcock says, is crucial for understanding one's rights under the laws of foreign countries. Leal, who has learning disabilities, was arrested when he was 21 for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old in San Antonio. He maintains his innocence.

Babcock says he was convicted using "junk science" and had shoddy representation.

Attorneys for Leal have issued a news release, "Former U.S. Diplomats, Retired Military Leaders, Judges, Prosecutors, & Americans Abroad Urge TX Governor to Grant Clemency to Humberto Leal."

Attorneys for Humberto Leal Garcia today filed a clemency petition with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Rick Perry, requesting a stay of his July 7 execution date.  The petition states that Mr. Leal would not have been convicted and sentenced to death if the United States had complied with treaty obligations to notify the Mexican consulate after his 1994 arrest for capital murder.

Congress is poised to introduce legislation to remedy the violation of Mr. Leal’s rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which allows individuals facing prosecution in a foreign country to have early and ongoing contact with their consular representatives. 

Prominent bipartisan groups, including former U.S. diplomats, retired military leaders, former judges and prosecutors, and organizations representing Americans abroad, have come forward to urge the Texas Governor and Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant a stay of execution to allow time for Congress to remedy the violations in Mr. Leal’s case.  In their letters, these diverse groups express concern that if Mr. Leal is executed despite the Vienna Convention violations, other nations will be emboldened to violate the consular rights of U.S. citizens arrested in foreign countries.

“For Texas to proceed with [Leal’s] execution prior to full compliance with these treaty obligations would endanger the interests of American citizens and the United States around the world,” states John B. Bellinger, III, former Legal Advisor for the Department of State during the second term of the Bush Administration, in a letter signed by a group of former ambassadors and State Department officials that was delivered to Governor Perry today.

“Improving U.S. enforcement of its consular notification and access legal obligations will help protect American citizens detained abroad, including U.S. military personnel and their families stationed overseas,” write retired military leaders supporting clemency for Mr. Leal, including Brigadier General James P. Cullen, Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, and Rear Admiral Don Guter. “We urge you to support those who are serving our country overseas by granting a reprieve in this case while Congress acts to meet our international responsibilities.”

In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held that Mr. Leal must have a hearing to determine if he was harmed by the United States’ violation of the Vienna Convention.  The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the United States is obligated to comply with the ICJ decision, but that Congress must act to implement the Court’s decision.  Both the Bush and Obama administrations have sought to enforce the decision, and in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision the Government has supported federal legislation to provide hearings for Mr. Leal and other Mexican nationals denied their consular rights.

“If Mr. Leal had been provided consular assistance, he would not have been convicted, let alone sentenced to death.  With consular access, Mr. Leal would have had competent lawyers and expert assistance that would have transformed the quality of his defense,” said Sandra L. Babcock, Clinical Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law and attorney for Mr. Leal.

Mexican consulates have a history of monitoring capital trial proceedings and securing competent lawyers for their citizens facing the death penalty in the U.S.  If the government of Mexico had been informed of Mr. Leal’s arrest, he would have been provided with highly qualified and experienced legal counsel, as well as funding for necessary experts and investigators.   

The court-appointed lawyers Mr. Leal received were inexperienced and ineffective.  One of them was suspended from the practice of law twice for failing to adequately represent clients and publicly reprimanded on two other occasions.  

The state’s case relied on antiquated and flawed DNA testing. Modern DNA testing may show that Mr. Leal is innocent of the crime.  Yet, the state is refusing to allow the testing to proceed.  A case is pending in federal court to compel Texas to release evidence so that it may be subjected to new DNA testing.      

In addition, the state relied on “bite mark” evidence that is now universally recognized as inconclusive junk science.  A recent scientific study revealed a 63% false positive rate when attempting to use bite mark evidence to establish identity.  Indeed, several men have recently been exonerated after so-called “bite mark experts” linked them to the crime.  Mr. Leal’s lawyers failed to challenge both the bite mark and faulty DNA evidence.

Moreover, Mr. Leal’s lawyers failed to present powerful mitigating evidence at the sentencing phase of trial.  As a result, the jury that sentenced Mr. Leal to death did so without the opportunity to hear about his struggle to overcome learning disabilities and brain damage.  Nor did they learn that between the ages of ten and eleven, Humberto was subjected to terrifying acts of sexual abuse by his parish priest, abuse that caused severe and lasting psychological damage. 
 
This and other significant mitigating evidence came to light only after the Mexican consulate got involved in his case.

Earlier coverage of Humberto Leal's case begins at the link

Mexico Seeks Commutation for Humberto Leal

Fox News is reporting, "Mexican rights body seeks clemency for man on Texas death row."

A clemency request has been filed with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles for Humberto Leal Garcia, a Mexican sentenced to death in that U.S. state, the National Human Rights Commission, or CNDH, said.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been asked to "suspend the execution planned for next July 7 and to commute the sentence that was imposed for another of prison time," the CNDH, Mexico's equivalent of an ombudsman's office, said.

The International Court of Justice ruled on March 31, 2004, in the Avena and Other Mexican Nationals case that Leal's rights had been violated, the CNDH said.

The ICJ, which is based in The Hague and is the United Nations' highest judicial organ, ruled that U.S. authorities should review the death sentences of 51 Mexicans.

The international judicial panel found that the 38-year-old Leal and the other Mexicans "were denied the guarantee under international law to be informed of their right to consular assistance to mount their defense before the courts, which is established under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention," the CNDH said.

"Respect for life and bodily integrity are pillars of the concept of ius cogens, made up of a group of essential principles for civilized life among individuals, peoples and nations," CNDH president Raul Plascencia said in his signed clemency petition.

The decision made in the Leal case "will, without a doubt, be recognized by the international community as an unequivocal sign of the commitment that all authority should have to respect for life and the fundamental rights of human beings," the CNDH said.

Earlier coverage of the Leal case begins at the link.  Earlier coverage of the issue of Mexican nationals on Texas' death row and the ICJ begins at the link.

Related posts are in the foreign citizen index.

Humberto Leal

SA Current, San Antonio's alt-weekly, features, "Illegal injections: How Texas is breaking the law, one execution at a time," written by Michael Barajas.  Here's the beginning of this lengthy examination of the case with its tangled issues:

In the early hours of May 21, 1994, 16-year-old Adria Sauceda and dozens of others attended a raucous Southside house party on Vincent Street, where witnesses reported seeing a dazed Sauceda — pumped full of alcohol, cocaine, and marijuana — pulled to the backyard. There she was stripped and circled by eight or nine men, each “taking turns” on the disoriented teenager. Friends who came to her aid were told to shut up, drink, and quit spoiling the party.

Later that morning, Humberto Leal, Jr. showed up, furious about what had happened to Sauceda, according to witnesses. He insisted on taking the girl home, saying she was a neighbor of his. Hours after Leal drove off with the victim in his father’s 1977 Mercedes, police found the girl’s naked and beaten body in a field just yards away from the house. She had been repeatedly raped, lastly with a crude wooden plank, and bludgeoned to death.

The account of that tragedy, pulled from hundreds of pages of trial transcripts and case files, is complex and, Leal’s defense now claims, filled with holes. Leal has always claimed he left the party with the victim that drunken night, and admitted to police he may have accidentally killed her during an alcohol-fueled fight on the side of the road. But for over a decade, Leal has denied he ever kidnapped or raped the victim.

But Leal’s imminent execution is now entangled in a controversy that has dogged the administrations of two U.S. presidents. Set to die by lethal injection this summer, the execution of the Mexican national flies in the face of international law, the wishes of the Mexican government, and even the U.S. Supreme Court. Leal, born in Monterrey, Mexico, is one of 50 Mexicans sitting on death row who have been charged, tried, and sentenced to die without gaining access to Mexican consular officials — a clear violation of a long-standing international treaty that protects thousands of Americans arrested abroad each year.

Leal’s lawyers claim the lack of access to the Mexican consulate sabotaged his case from the start, equipping him with a hopelessly inadequate defense team that failed to challenge the case against him. A review of the trial, they say, reveals a shoddy investigation that left more questions than answers in the wake of Sauceda’s brutal 1994 slaying.

While denied a retrial and, as of yet, the ability to re-test a crucial piece of evidence that secured his conviction, Leal’s lawyers say a judicial review, as requested by numerous U.S. and Mexican officials, would give the case a fair shake and flush out any uncertainty that still looms over the investigation into the teenager’s tragic murder.

Leal has a July 7th execution date.

Related posts are in the foreign citizen index.

Lethal Injection Roundup

There is news from Alabama, Montana, and the UK this morning.

"Ala has drug needed for Hallford execution," is the title of Bob Johnson's AP report via Louisiana's Lafourche Parish Daily Comet.

State prison officials said Monday they have an adequate supply of the drug needed for the scheduled execution Thursday of Phillip Hallford, condemned to die for the 1987 shooting death of his pregnant daughter's boyfriend in Dale County.

Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett said the state has enough sodium thiopental to carry out the lethal injection, despite a national shortage that has delayed some executions in other states.

Arizona had to go overseas to obtain the drug for an execution last week. But Corbett said the Alabama Department of Corrections "has a sufficient supply of unexpired, FDA-approved sodium thiopental to carry out the execution as ordered by the Alabama Supreme Court."

From Montana, the Missoulian reports, "Judge grants injunction halting execution of double-murderer Ronald Smith."  It's by Gwen Florio.  The injunction is in Adbobe .pdf format.

A district judge in Helena on Monday halted the execution of Ronald Allen Smith, even though a date for his death has yet to be set.

That date was supposed to be scheduled Wednesday by Missoula County District Judge John Larson. It was unclear Monday evening whether the scheduling hearing, to be held in Powell County District Court in Deer Lodge, would still happen.

"To set an execution date - there's no purpose in it because there's not going to be an execution," said Ron Waterman, the Helena attorney who successfully sought the injunction from District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock.

And:

Waterman's request for the injunction cited his earlier litigation that terms Montana's method of lethal injection unconstitutionally cruel and unusual.

It also noted that the old house trailer on the grounds of the Montana State Prison used for executions was moved earlier this year to make way for an addition to the prison.

The addition isn't finished yet, meaning the prison has no approved place for executions, Waterman's motion said. Prison spokesman Bob Anez said last week that the house trailer easily could be moved back into place if necessary.

In his order granting the injunction, Sherlock wrote that "execution of the death sentence currently pending against Plaintiff will cause great and irreparable injury to Plaintiff."

The order also stays the deadline for Smith to file a petition for clemency if Larson still sets a date on Wednesday.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Smith, who originally sought the death penalty when he pleaded guilty to the killings.

If Waterman's legal action addressing Montana's method of execution, or "protocol," fails to stop the execution, Smith's last hope lies with clemency from Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

Once an execution date is set, a prisoner has 10 days to file a clemency request with the Board of Pardons, which in turn would make a recommendation to the governor.

Schweitzer, however, has said that he'll follow the wishes of the victims' families in the matter.

The AP report is, "Execution of Canadian on death row in Mont. halted," via NECN.

A judge in Helena on Monday halted the execution of the only known Canadian on death row in the United States, even though a date for the death has not been set.

"Cable under fire for allowing execution drug sale," by Ian Dunt is at the British site, Politics.

Vince Cable was the subject of a scathing attack from human rights groups today, after he refused to prevent a UK company supplying a drug used in executions.

Law firm Leigh Day and Reprieve will today launch a legal action against the government on behalf of Edmund Zagorski, an American prisoner facing imminent execution with drugs imported from Britain.

The groups say one death row prisoner, Jeffery Landrigan, has already been executed in Arizona using drugs supplied by a British company.

US authorities were forced to use British-produced chemicals after they ran out of Sodium Thiopental.

And:

The groups said that Mr Cable, business secretary, refused to act on the basis that the drug would be available from other countries and that he preferred not to interfere in US-UK trade.

Jeremy Browne at the Foreign Office also refused to become involved, campaigners said.

Earlier coverage from Arizona and Montana at the links.

An Update on the Linda Carty Case

"Replica prison cell highlights Briton's death row plight," is the UK Press Association report, via Google News.

A life-size death row cell will be opened to the public in central London to highlight the plight of death row Briton Linda Carty, campaigners have said.

Carty, 51, could be given the lethal injection within weeks after the US Supreme Court refused to review a murder conviction campaigners say resulted from a "catastrophically flawed" trial.

Clive Stafford Smith, director of legal action charity Reprieve, said: "Linda faces execution very soon now.

"There is no lonelier place than a death row cell, and no greater power imbalance than that between a condemned prisoner and the government that wants to kill them. I encourage visitors to enter Death's Waiting Room and imagine yourself in Linda's position - I'm sure it will be an unforgettable experience."

The exhibition, which opens on Thursday, will replicate Carty's death row cell in the courtyard of St Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square.

And:

Carty has always maintained her innocence. She claims she was framed over the murder by the men who carried out the abduction due to her earlier work as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Reprieve claim Carty was given an incompetent defence lawyer during the original trial who, amongst other alleged failings, neglected to inform the British Government so it could intervene on her behalf. Likewise the Foreign Office complained of "ineffective counsel" in court filings it made under the last government in support of Carty.

"US Death Row to Haunt Trafalgar Square," is the posting at LondonNet.

DEATH stalks Trafalgar Square from 12 August in the eerie form of a full-size replica of an American death row.

Billed as Death's Waiting Room, the exhibit will appear outside St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, just across from the Square, to draw attention to the case of Linda Carty, a grandmother from Britain who faces execution in the Texas.

The death row on show is to be an exact copy of the one in which Carty currently languishes.

"I encourage visitors to enter Death's Waiting Room and imagine yourself in Linda's position," said Clive Stafford Smith, a leading anti death penalty campaigner and director of legal action charity Reprieve.

Earlier coverage begins with this post, noting the Supreme Court's refusal to review her case.

An Extradition Hitch

"Court: UK must not extradite terror suspects to US," is the AP report written by Robert Weilaard via Google News.

An international court on Thursday ordered Britain to hold off on extraditing four terrorism suspects to the United States, saying it must show that life terms without parole in maximum security prisons would not violate Europe's human rights charter.

The suspects include three Britons and the Egyptian-born radical cleric Mustafa Kamal Mustafa — also known as Abu Hamza al-Masri, the one-eyed, hook-handed hardliner accused of setting up a terrorist training camp in rural Oregon.

The European Court of Human Rights gave Britain until Sept. 2 to respond to questions about the punishment they will face.

If convicted of charges filed between 2004 and 2006, they could get lifelong jail terms without parole in maximum security conditions, including concrete furniture, timed showers, tiny cell windows and no communications with the outside world.

And:

Europe and the United States have long disagreed on the merit of the death penalty. Thursday's ruling opens a new front, this one over the U.S. practice of putting convicted criminals in spartan, maximum security prisons for the rest of their lives.

It is now up to Britain, presumably in collaboration with U.S. legal experts, to show it is not cruel or degrading.

After the four exhausted their appeals against extradition in British courts, they turned to the Strasbourg, France-based court.

They argued incarceration in the U.S. will be so long and harsh it would amount to a violation of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950. The article says, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

And:

The 70-page ruling cites the harsh conditions at a maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado, where the suspects will likely be sent, if convicted. Human Rights Watch, the New York-based rights group, has said the prison's conditions violate U.S. international treaty obligations.

The court is an arm of the 47-nation Council of Europe, Europe's premier human rights watchdog. Its judgment are binding on members.

Related posts are in the foreign citizen and international law indexes.