Texas carried out the controversial execution of a Mexican national who was denied his consular rights on Thursday, ignoring calls for a reprieve from the White House and the Mexican government.
Humberto Leal Garcia, 38, is one of at least 51 Mexicans on US death rows who were not informed after their arrests that they could get legal help from the Mexican consulate, a violation of the Vienna Convention.
He was executed at 6:21pm in a Huntsville, Texas, prison for the 1994 rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl, state officials said.
Mexico has long protested the failure of US authorities to inform local consulates when its citizens are arrested for serious crimes.
The International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 that the US was in violation of its treaty obligations, but it has failed to pass a law requiring local officials to inform foreign nationals of their consular rights. In a rare intervention, the US government’s top lawyer urged the Supreme Court to spare Leal’s life, saying his execution would cause “irreparable harm” to US interests.
“This case implicates United States foreign policy interests of the highest order,” US Solicitor General Donald Verrilli wrote in an amicus brief to the top court last week. The execution “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.”
Verrilli urged the court to stay Leal’s execution until January while a bill concerning consular rights works its way through Congress. The Supreme Court denied the request for a stay of execution in a 5-4 decision just over an hour before Leal was set to be put to death.
“We decline to follow the United States’ suggestion of granting a stay to allow Leal to bring a claim based on hypothetical legislation when it cannot even bring itself to say that his attempt to overturn his conviction has any prospect of success,” the court wrote.
At least 132 foreign nationals from 34 countries are on death row in the US, according to Human Rights Research. While it’s not clear how many have been denied consular access, evidence suggests that police forces routinely fail to notify foreign nationals of their right to seek consular help.
Only one of the 26 foreign nationals executed in the US since 1988 was informed of their consular rights at the time of their arrests, Human Rights Research said.
Leal, who suffered from brain damage, had maintained his innocence and his defense team has argued that he was convicted with flawed evidence. His lawyers said the murdered girl was under the influence of drugs and alcohol and died accidentally after falling on a rock when Leal tried to help her after she was raped at a party.
They have also argued that his original court-appointed defense team was “disgracefully inadequate” — one attorney was twice suspended for ethical violations — and that Leal would have received far more competent legal representation if he had been granted his consular rights.
In his final statement, Leal said he was “sorry for everything that I have done” and asked the victim’s family to “forgive me.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not