UK - Should execution go through for rapist/killer of 16 year-old girl

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Reality Orlando

Reality Orlando

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This is from the Guardian news service in the United Kingdom...so it's already in the international spotlight.

Should this execution be halted?

"President Barack Obama is attempting to block the execution in Texas on Thursday of a Mexican man because it would breach an international convention and do "irreparable harm" to US interests.

The White House has asked the US supreme court to put the execution of Humberto Leal Garcia on hold while Congress passes a law that would prevent the convicted rapist and murderer from being put to death along with dozens of other foreign nationals who were denied proper access to diplomatic representation before trials for capital crimes.

The administration moved after the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, brushed aside appeals from diplomats, top judges, senior military officers, the United Nations and former president George W Bush to stay Leal's execution because it could jeopardise American citizens arrested abroad as well as US diplomatic interests.

Leal, 38, was convicted in 1994 of the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl in San Antonio. Few question that he was responsible for the killing but the Texas authorities failed to tell Leal, who was born in Mexico and has lived in the US since the age of two, that under the Vienna convention he was entitled to contact the Mexican consulate when he was arrested."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/05/obama-stop-texas-mexican-execution
 
Absolutely halt the execution. The man was not informed of all of his rights.
 
Reality Orlando said:
This is from the Guardian news service in the United Kingdom...so it's already in the international spotlight.

Should this execution be halted?

"President Barack Obama is attempting to block the execution in Texas on Thursday of a Mexican man because it would breach an international convention and do "irreparable harm" to US interests.

The White House has asked the US supreme court to put the execution of Humberto Leal Garcia on hold while Congress passes a law that would prevent the convicted rapist and murderer from being put to death along with dozens of other foreign nationals who were denied proper access to diplomatic representation before trials for capital crimes.

The administration moved after the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, brushed aside appeals from diplomats, top judges, senior military officers, the United Nations and former president George W Bush to stay Leal's execution because it could jeopardise American citizens arrested abroad as well as US diplomatic interests.

Leal, 38, was convicted in 1994 of the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl in San Antonio. Few question that he was responsible for the killing but the Texas authorities failed to tell Leal, who was born in Mexico and has lived in the US since the age of two, that under the Vienna convention he was entitled to contact the Mexican consulate when he was arrested."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/05/obama-stop-texas-mexican-execution
Click to expand...

He's guilty, he took a young girl's life, execute him.
 
kgeaux said:
Absolutely halt the execution. The man was not informed of all of his rights.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Also, ever want Mexico to cooperate with us? Perhaps improve relations so that they'll extradite criminals back here and help us recover our missing? Don't execute this guy. They're not asking for his release, he can rot in prison for the rest of his life, Mexico doesn't care, they just don't want him executed, and we should be smart enough to realize that life w/o parole is justice enough if execution is going to worsen relations with one of our closest neighbors.

Bigger picture here, guys.
 
My thoughts are, of course, colored by my disagreement with the death penalty in general.

However, putting that aside (and I think I am really putting it aside), the execution should by all means be halted. The right to access one's consulate when arrested in a foreign country is an important one, and one that we need to stick to if we expect other countries to stick to it when Americans are arrested overseas.

Being arrested in a foreign country is scary. My own experience is extremely minor--when I was an undergrad, I studied in England for a semester. One of my friends got arrested one night (deservedly, he was acting like a stupid American 20-year-old and got drunk, passed out in a street, and puked on the cop who tried to wake him up). However, we were all freaking out and had these terrible visions of him being locked up for months/years (I was the one who had the bright idea of calling the Embassy--they don't answer their phones at 2 a.m., at least not for tipsy-but-panicked college students). He ended up being released in a couple hours once he sobered up a bit, but it was still pretty scary (and a good learning moment, for the kid involved and all of his friends).
 
TwilightSparkle said:
Exactly. Also, ever want Mexico to cooperate with us? Perhaps improve relations so that they'll extradite criminals back here and help us recover our missing? Don't execute this guy. They're not asking for his release, he can rot in prison for the rest of his life, Mexico doesn't care, they just don't want him executed, and we should be smart enough to realize that life w/o parole is justice enough if execution is going to worsen relations with one of our closest neighbors.

Bigger picture here, guys.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. This issue carries implications far greater than this particular case and convict alone. OTOH, if they win this, they can, and probably will, argue the same in reference to the conviction of guilt itself.

It would be tragic if this guy walks completely because the "authorities" chose not to fully disclose his rights.
 
He has been in the US for 36 of his 38 years. Was he living as a citizen? Did he attend school here? Does he have a wife and children here? Did the police have a way of knowing he was not a citizen?

I am not arguing whether or not his rights were given to him, but rather if he enjoyed his US citizenship until a lawyer found a loophole?

Believe me, I do not feel anyone should be stripped of their rights, but no one has the right to rape and murder another human being.

Of course after today, my faith in the judicial system was sorely tried.
 
So the police were supposed to tell him he had the right to speak to the Mexican consulate? The police are not supposed to ask about his immigration status, so how would they know that he was not a citizen, and therefore entitled to speak with the consulate? Sheesh!

You really can't have it both ways.
smileyvault-sadno.gif


His victim was 16 year-old Adria Sauceda.

She was kidnapped, tortured, raped, and beaten to death in the desert, her skull crushed with repeated blows from a 40 pound slab of asphalt, her body violated by a fifteen inch broken stick.

He's gone now, as of 6 pm this evening.
 
Here are just a few concerns I have with this case.
Americans are stopped and detained quite a bit overseas, before this case, and held w/o American consult quite a bit. Americans just... *poof*.. vanish on vacation sometimes. None questions asked. No bartering being done on their behalf.

I guess, this two-way street everyone is talking about isn't really two-way but more of "throwing 'bows" around for some countries (particularly Mexico, but who said going there is safe any more - without the threat of ending up in prison there?)

Short way around this for me, where are the rights of this 16-year old girl that was raped and murdered? Does she still have rights in all this, and if so who to I contact and barter with to make sure?
 
Pronounced dead at 6:21 p.m. CDT:

About to die, Leal apologizes for killing S.A. teen (San Antonio Express-News)
---
“I am sorry for the victim's family and what I had did,” he continued. “May they forgive me. I don't know if you believe me.”

Leal ended by saying, “One more thing, Viva Mexico, Viva Mexico.”

“Ready warden, let's get this show on the road.”
---
Click to expand...
(much more at link above)

Excellent story in last week's Sunday Express-News:

Long-silent family of victim speaks
 
Well, good riddance. Hopefully, there will be some changes in the protocol as to how such monsters are dealt with in the legal system - if only to close up any possible loopholes. But in this case, justice has certainly been served.
 
TwilightSparkle said:
Exactly. Also, ever want Mexico to cooperate with us? Perhaps improve relations so that they'll extradite criminals back here and help us recover our missing? Don't execute this guy. They're not asking for his release, he can rot in prison for the rest of his life, Mexico doesn't care, they just don't want him executed, and we should be smart enough to realize that life w/o parole is justice enough if execution is going to worsen relations with one of our closest neighbors.

Bigger picture here, guys.
Click to expand...

What exactly does Mexico cooperate with us in general on upholding our laws and protecting our citizens? What are they doing to improve relations with us on crime fighting in general? No one is denying he got a fair trial n our court system.


Bigger picture is actually states rights here. It should be outrageous that this Administration tried to stop the execution, and that as it's predecessor, thought the International Court has higher authority than our own legal system.

The Supreme Court majority had it right today
On Thursday, in an unsigned majority opinion, the Supreme Court said that Congress had had plenty of time to act and that the court would not now “prohibit a state from carrying out a lawful judgment in light of unenacted legislation.”

“Our task,” the majority wrote, “is to rule on what the law is, not what it might eventually be.”

The majority also noted that “the United States studiously refuses to argue that Leal was prejudiced by the Vienna Convention violation,” suggesting that a fresh hearing would do Mr. Leal no good. He was convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 16-year-old girl.

“We decline,” the majority wrote, “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.”
Click to expand...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/us/08execute.html?_r=2&ref=us
 
http://news.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=7052


Court Refuses To Stop Execution Of Mexican

Published on July 07, 2011
by Jesse J. Holland
"We are doubtful that it is ever appropriate to stay a lower court judgment in light of unenacted legislation," the court said. "Our task is to rule on what the law is, not what it might eventually be."
Click to expand...

I haven't followed this, I only snipped the Court's response. There is more at the link.
 
Kat said:
http://news.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=7052


Court Refuses To Stop Execution Of Mexican

Published on July 07, 2011
by Jesse J. Holland


I haven't followed this, I only snipped the Court's response. There is more at the link.
Click to expand...

The way I understand it, the US never enacted the treaty that Obama is asking us to comply with. The Supreme Court came to the correct descision.

The United States and JUSTICE BREYER complain of 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. We have no authority to stay an execution in light of an “appeal of the President,” presenting free-ranging assertions of foreign policy consequences, when those assertions come unaccompanied by a persuasive legal claim.
Click to expand...

http://minx.cc/?post=318515
 
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