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.
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