In 1999, five foreign nationals - a Thai, a Filipino,...

In 1999, five foreign nationals - a Thai, a Filipino, a Canadian and two German brothers - were executed in the United States. Upon arrest, USA authorities failed to notify any of these individuals of their right to communicate with their consular representatives, as required under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Stanley Faulder, 61, was executed by lethal injection in Texas on June 17, after 22 years on death row. Faulder was the first Canadian executed in the United States since 1952 (see Texas). Arizona executed two German citizens, Karl LaGrand on February 24 and Walter LaGrand on March 3, for killing a bank manager in Arizona in 1982. Karl LaGrand was the first German citizen executed in the United States since World War II, when several prisoners of war were hanged. Both brothers chose the gas chamber instead of lethal injection in hopes of winning a stay on the grounds that execution in the gas chamber constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Karl LaGrand was allowed to switch to lethal injection at the last moment. Walter LaGrand, however, refused the state's offer to switch to lethal injection, and he was executed by the gas chamber at the State Prison in Florence. Gov. Jane Hull rejected appeals from German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to stay the execution.Jaturun Siripongs, a 43-year-old Thai national, practicing Buddhist, jailhouse artist and model prisoner, was executed at San Quentin on January 9.On April 5, Nevada executed Alvaro Calambro, 25, a Filipino man convicted of killing two U-Haul employees with a hammer and crowbar during a 1994 robbery. In 1999, four states - Georgia, Maryland, Nevada and Pennsylvania - asked two countries - Canada and France - to extradite defendants eligible for capital punishment back to the United States.