Eager to execute foreigners

Neither President Obama nor former President George W. Bush was able to convince Texas Gov. Rick Perry to stay the execution of Humberto Leal García, the Mexican citizen who was convicted of raping and murdering a teenage girl. 

“Why does the U.S. even sign treaties if it has no intention of abiding by them?” asked Carlos González Correa in the Mexico City La Crónica de Hoy. The state of Texas executed Mexican citizen Humberto Leal García last week for the 1994 rape and murder of a teenage girl. There’s little doubt of his guilt. His teeth marks were found on the girl’s body, her blood was in his car and on his shirt, and, most damningly, his own brother testified that he had confessed to the killing. But Leal was never given access to Mexican consular officials, who could have arranged for an adequate defense that may have spared him the death penalty. Under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which the U.S. is a party, foreign nationals must be given such access, but Texas argued that the treaty did not apply to the states, and the Supreme Court refused to stay the execution. Leal may have been a monster, but killing him illegally was no less a crime. His last words were, “Viva México. Viva México. Viva México.”

That would be touching, except that Leal “didn’t actually see himself as Mexican” until long after he was convicted, said Sergio Sarmiento in the Monterrey El Norte. He’d lived in the U.S. from the age of 2 and considered himself American. That’s why it never occurred to him to seek consular assistance. It seems odd, not to mention hypocritical, that Mexico would be so vehement in defending this man. The French have been complaining for years that one of their nationals, Florence Cassez, convicted here of kidnapping in a terribly flawed trial, was denied access to the French consulate. But you don’t see Mexico offering to retry her.

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