Texas is set to carry out its first execution of 2014, tonight in Huntsville. It would be the 509th post-Furman Texas execution since 1982. Texas is responsible for more than 37% of the nation's post-Furman executions.
There have been three executions by American death penalty states in 2014; a total of 1,362 post-Furman executions since 1977.
The scheduled execution of Edgar Tamayo Arias is getting widespread, international attention.
Today's Austin American-Statesman publishes the editorial, "State should delay Edgar Tamayo execution."
Once again, Texas is preparing to execute a Mexican citizen who wasn’t granted immediate access to Mexican consular officials as international treaty requires. The move, should the state succeed in executing Edgar Tamayo on Wednesday evening as scheduled, not only would ignore international law but also could put relations between the United States and Mexico at risk and potentially harm the treatment of Americans abroad.
Tamayo’s lawyers filed suit against Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to try to stop his execution. It’s important to note that the issue is not whether Tamayo, 46, is guilty of killing Houston police officer Guy Gaddis, 24, in 1994 by shooting him three times in the back of the head.
At issue is what didn’t happen after Tamayo was arrested. Texas authorities ignored American obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and failed to tell Tamayo that he had the right to contact Mexican officials after his arrest.
The consular treaty, which was negotiated, signed and ratified by the United States in the 1960s, requires local authorities to notify detained foreign nationals of their right to have their consulate informed of their arrest. It further allows consuls to arrange legal representation for citizens arrested abroad. The treaty ensures Americans abroad consular protection, and it is meant to do the same for foreign nationals in the United States.
"As execution nears, Mexican national Edgar Tamayo denied clemency," is the news report, also in today's Statesman. It's by Mike Ward.
With his scheduled execution just hours away, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied a clemency request from a Mexican national convicted of gunning down a Houston police officer in 1994.
Parole officials said Wednesday the board refused a clemency request by a majority vote.
The decision came after attorneys for Edgar Arias Tamayo on Tuesday asked U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel of Austin to delay the execution scheduled Wednesday evening, alleging the clemency process is legally flawed. No decision has been announced.
In announcing its vote, the seven-member parole board noted that federal appellate courts have upheld its authority to deny clemency.
"Attorneys, Mexican officials want impending execution of Mexican man halted in Texas," is the AP report by Michael Graczyk, via the Republic.
Mexican officials are incensed because Texas has opposed legal efforts and spurned diplomatic pressure to spare a prisoner who was in the U.S. without legal permission when he was condemned for fatally shooting a Houston police officer two decades ago.
Edgar Arias Tamayo, 46, was set for lethal injection Wednesday for the January 1994 slaying of Guy Gaddis, 24.
And:
Secretary of State John Kerry previously asked Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to delay Tamayo's punishment, saying it "could impact the way American citizens are treated in other countries." The State Department repeated that stance Tuesday.
But Abbott's office and the Harris County district attorney opposed postponing what would be the first execution this year in the nation's most active capital punishment state, where 16 people were put to death in 2013.
The Mexican government said in a statement this week it "strongly opposed" the execution and reminded that failure to review Tamayo's case and reconsider his sentence would be "a clear violation by the United States of its international obligations."
"Planned execution in Texas draws high-profile protests," is by Molly Hennessy-Fiske for the Los Angeles Times.
On Tuesday, a federal judge in Austin rejected Tamayo's request for an order that would have prevented Gov. Rick Perry and the parole board from considering his clemency petition until the fairness of the state's clemency process could be reviewed. The judge found that the clemency process satisfied constitutional requirements and did not violate Tamayo's right to due process of law.
Tamayo's attorneys vowed to keep fighting.
"The Texas clemency process is the weakest in the nation, in the state that executes the most. Allowing Mr. Tamayo's fate to be decided by a board that has refused to provide meaningful consideration of evidence that Mr. Tamayo has mental retardation and that his trial was fundamentally unfair as a result of the violation of his consular rights is an affront to what clemency is supposed to be," the attorneys said in a statement.
"Mexican’s likely execution in Texas reignites dispute over global treaty," is by Tim Johnson of McClatchy News, and is datelined Mexico City. It's via the Kansas City Star.
When Texas administers a lethal injection to convicted cop killer Edgar Tamayo on Wednesday, it will defy the Mexican government and the U.S. State Department and put Texas once again into a dispute over the rights of foreigners held on death row.
A Mexican national convicted of killing a Houston police officer in 1994, Tamayo, 46, has sought a reprieve from execution for 19 years, arguing that Texas police didn’t follow the Vienna Convention that requires them to give foreigners rapid access to consular officials from their home countries when arrested.
His position has won the support of his home government and the Obama administration, which worries that American citizens also might be denied consular access.
“Our consular visits help ensure U.S. citizens detained overseas have access to food and appropriate medical care, if needed, as well as access to legal representation,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in a letter to Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry urging that the execution be delayed.
Perry has rejected any postponement.
"Texas Clemency Process Poor, But Good Enough for Government Work," is by Jordan Smith for the Austin Chronicle.
Federal Judge Lee Yeakel on Tuesday afternoon denied a bid by condemned Texas inmate Edgar Tamayo to stay his execution pending an inquiry into whether the clemency process undertaken by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles affords minimal due process protections required by law – a decision that cleared the way for tonight's planned execution.
Yeakel reviewed confidential materials provided to him by the BPP and concluded that there is nothing to indicate the Board does not "comply with the minimal constitutional-due-process requirements set forth by the United States Supreme Court," he wrote. Indeed, he wrote, there is nothing to suggest the BPP's procedures have undergone any significant change since Yeakel's colleague, Judge Sam Sparks, ruled on a similar challenge in 1998. In that case, brought by a Canadian national, Joseph Faulder, Sparks found that while it "is abundantly clear the Texas clemency procedure is extremely poor and certainly minimal," it nonetheless met the "minimal" standards required by the Supreme Court.
Shortly after Yeakel's ruling, the Texas BPP voted to deny Tamayo's bid for clemency. Unless Gov. Rick Perry steps in with a stay, the BPP vote and Yeakel ruling have cleared the way for Tamayo to be executed tonight, after 6pm.
Latin Times posts, "Edgar Tamayo Arias News: Mexican To Be Executed Despite Department of State Appeal," by Oscar Lopez.
Mr. Tamayo is to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday afternoon. The 46-year-old's father, Hector Tamayo, has declared the proceedings a violation of justice "it's unjust what they want to do to him knowing full well that he isn't guilty, that he didn't kill the policeman. He never said he killed him and nor was he assisted by the consulate nor any of the people that should help when someone commits a crime."
Meanwhile a report from Reforma suggests that Mr. Tamayo Arias' himself is "calm and resigned" to his fate. Human rights groups have condemned the execution for not only violating the Vienna Convention but also for executing a man who has shown signs of mental retardation.
Houston's KPFT-FM will host Execution Watch on the web and its HD radio broadcast signal beginning at 6:00 p.m. (CST), this evening.
Earlier coverage of the case of Edgar Tamayo Arias begins at the link. Related posts are in the foreign citizen and international law category indexes.
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