"Capital case raises questions of international consular rights," is by Jordan Smith in the Austin Chronicle.
On July 18, 2008, Gov. Rick Perry wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, thanking the pair for their written request of the month before. Rice and Mukasey had asked that Texas comply with an International Court of Justice order, to ensure that Mexican nationals on death row in Texas were afforded the legal protections assured to them by a now roughly five-decade-old international treaty.
A 1963 Vienna Convention provision ensures individuals have access to home-country consular officials when detained or charged with a crime while abroad – a provision that not only protects foreign nationals in the U.S., but also protects U.S. citizens abroad. Mexico sued the U.S. over violations of the provision, and in 2004 won a judgment from the ICJ in the Hague that concluded the U.S. had not met that obligation in the case of 51 Mexican nationals sentenced to death in the U.S.
One such person was Edgar Tamayo, convicted in Texas for the 1994 murder of Houston Police Officer Guy Gaddis. Tamayo shot Gaddis from the backseat of a patrol car while Gaddis was transporting him to jail. Tamayo had been picked up for a robbery outside a Houston nightclub; Gaddis missed finding the handgun hidden in Tamayo's waistband after a brief frisk.
Although President George W. Bush then asked the states to give effect to the ICJ ruling, Texas' highest criminal court dismissed the notion that the state was bound by the decision, and a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court subsequently ruled that Congress would have to act to make the decision binding. Congressional action has not happened, and unless Perry – or perhaps a federal court – intervenes (possibly on a recommendation of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles) Tamayo will be executed on Jan. 22, without any court considering whether the failure of officials to inform him of his right to consular notification negatively impacted the outcome of his case.
The Latin Times reports, "Edgar Tamayo Arias Execution News: Lawyers To Sue Texas Governor Rick Perry," by Oscar Lopez.
Edgar Tamayo Arias' lawyers have filed a lawsuit in Federal Court against the Texas Board of Pardons and Governor Rick Perry, whom they accuse of 'Inadequate Clemency Proceedings.' Sandra Babcock, Tamayo Arias' lawyer and professor at Northwestern University's Law School stated that "The process of Clemency undertaken by the Texas Board of Pardons is surrounded by secrecy. Its members have refused to come together to discuss the petition brought forward by our client."
Edgar Tamayo Arias' legal team has stipulated that the Texas Board of Pardons has violated its own rules of a "just and legal process" in the proceedings: specifically, the Board is accused of refusing the defence team access to key documents presented by the prosecution which opposes Mr. Tamayo Arias' bid for clemency. The defence attorneys have asked for a suspension of 150 days in the hopes of halting the execution scheduled for January 22nd.
Babcock and her team had placed a petition for Executive Clemency to the Board of Pardons on the 11th of December 2013, however, the seven members of the Board have not voted on the matter. Babcock argued that the process of Clemency is the only forum which could grant Tamayo his right to revise the consequences of the "negligence of the state of Texas" by not informing him of his right to seek consular assistance at his arrest in 1994 for the murder of Police Officer Guy Gaddis in Houston.
"Mr. Tamayo was never informed of his right to contact the consulate, as is stipulated in the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations; and, unlike other Mexicans already executed, he has not been granted any form of judicial review," Ms. Babcock argued. She also indicated that the Attorney General as well as Governor Perry had promised a review of cases like Mr. Tamayo's but "until now they have not kept their promise." The lawsuit filed today seeks to stop the Board from a vote before granting the defends team access to the prosecution's documents.
"Texas Set To Execute Cop-Killing Mexican Citizen," by David Martin Davies for Fronteras.
Lawyers for Tamayo argue he was not given his rights under the Vienna Convention at the time of his arrest, that treaty stating everyone has a right to contact their consulate after being arrested in a foreign country.
Margaret Moran, National President of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said six years ago Texas had promised the courts it would review Tamayo case but it has not done so.
“The fact is that Governor [Rick] Perry and Attorney General [Greg] Abbott are breaking their promise by refusing at every turn to allow a review of this undisputed consular rights violation and the fact is that should they allow a review of this case he would not be executed," Moran said.
The state of Texas did received letters from both Secretary of State John Kerry and the Mexican ambassador to the U.S., both urging the court not the set an execution date. They say that allowing the execution would be detrimental to the United States-Mexico relationship.
Earlier coverage of Edgar Tamayo Arias' case begins at the link.
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