Badges - Re: Texas governor defends Mexican's execution
- From: codi_kerss@xxxxxxxxx
- To: badges@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2011 15:25:05 +0000
..And that would be too good for him!
Sent via BlackBerry smartphone by Cellular One of East Texas
-----Original Message-----
From: "CarlGlas" <CarlGlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sender: badges-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2011 05:59:20
To: <badges@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: badges@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Badges - Re: Texas governor defends Mexican's execution
I suppose I'm not smart enough to realize the outreaching effects on this
execution. Here you have someone who has lived in the United States for
almost all their life, enjoying all that this country has to offer and his
last words were Viva Mexico.
They should bury the piece of shit in the ground without a casket. Or,
better yet, take his body to the border and throw it in the river with a
piece of wood sticking up his ass.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ronald M. Thomason" <r4445@xxxxxxx>
To: "Badges" <badges@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, July 08, 2011 8:32 PM
Subject: [Bulk] Badges - Texas governor defends Mexican's execution
HOUSTON (AP) - Gov. Rick Perry rebuffed criticism Friday from the United
Nations and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for Texas' execution of a
Mexican man whose lawyers said he was not informed he could have sought
legal help from the Mexican government after he was arrested for the
murder of a San Antonio teenager.
"If you commit the most heinous of crimes in Texas, you can expect to face
the ultimate penalty under our laws," Perry's spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger
said a day after convicted killer Humberto Leal was put to death in
Huntsville.
In Geneva, the U.N.'s top human rights official said Leal's execution
amounted to a breach of international law by the U.S.
The Texas governor has the authority in execution cases to issue a one-time
30-day reprieve, an authority Perry and other governors in the nation's most
active capital punishment state rarely have invoked.
"After reviewing the totality of the issues that led to Leal's conviction,
as well as the numerous court rulings surrounding the case, including the
most recent Supreme Court ruling on Thursday, Gov. Perry agreed that Leal
was guilty of raping and bludgeoning a 16-year-old girl to death," Cesinger
said.
Adria Sauceda was killed in 1994 in a gruesome attack in which her head was
bashed with a 30- to 40-pound piece of asphalt and she was raped,
strangled, bit and then left nude on a dirt road with a piece of wood stuck
in her.
From the Texas death chamber Thursday evening, Leal, 38, took
responsibility for the slaying, asked for forgiveness and wrapped up his
comments
by twice shouting: "Viva Mexico!"
He was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and moved with his family to the U.S. when
he was about 1½ years old.
Mexico's government, President Barack Obama's administration and the State
Department were among those asking the Supreme Court to stop the execution
of the former mechanic to allow Congress time to consider legislation that
would require court reviews for condemned foreign nationals who weren't
offered the help of their consulates.
The high court rejected the request 5-4.
"The secretary herself is quite disappointed in the outcome in this case,"
Clinton's spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said Friday. "You know that the U.S.
government sought a stay of Leal's execution in order to give the Congress
time to act on the Consular Notification Compliance Act, which would have
provided Leal the judicial review required by international law.
"Frankly if we don't protect the rights of non-Americans in the United
States, we seriously risk reciprocal lack of access to our own citizens
overseas," Nuland said. "So this is why the secretary is concerned. ...
We've got to treat non-Americans properly here if we expect to be able to
help our citizens overseas."
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said the punishment
"raises particular legal concerns," including whether Leal had access to
consular services and a fair trial.
Pillay also cited a 2004 International Court of Justice ruling saying the
U.S. must review and reconsider the cases of 51 Mexican nationals sentenced
to death, including Leal's. In 2005, President George W. Bush agreed with
the ruling but the U.S. Supreme Court later overruled Bush.
"Texas is not bound by a foreign court's ruling," Cesinger said. "The U.S.
Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the treaty was not binding on the states
and that the president does not have the authority to order states to review
cases of the then 51 foreign nationals on death row in the U.S."
In its ruling Thursday about an hour before Leal's execution, the Supreme
Court's majority opinion pointed to the IJC decision, saying it's been seven
years since then and three years since the previous Texas death penalty case
that raised similar consular legal access issues.
If a statute implementing the provisions of the international court ruling
"had genuinely been a priority for the political branches, it would have
been enacted by now," the majority ruling said.
Had the White House and dissenting justices been worried about "the grave
international consequences that will follow from Leal's execution ...
Congress evidently did not find these consequences sufficiently grave to
prompt its enactment of implementing legislation, and we will follow the law
as written by Congress," the ruling continued.
Leal's appeals lawyers had pinned their hopes on legislation introduced in
the Senate last month that applied to the Vienna Convention provisions and
said Leal should have a reprieve so the measure could make its way through
the legislative process.
Similar bills have failed twice in recent congressional sessions.
"Our task is to rule on what the law is, not what it might eventually be,"
the court said.
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