Mexican officials said Arizona's decision not to pursue...

Mexican officials said Arizona's decision not to pursue the death penalty for a convicted Mexican killer was a victory.
Ruben Beltran, Mexican consul general in Phoenix, said he was very pleased by his government's efforts to prevent Ramon Martinez Villareal from receiving a death sentence. Mexico does not have the death penalty.
According to Beltran, Mexican officials filed numerous appeals and made several appearances before the Arizona Board of Pardons to save Martinez Villareal from a lethal injection or the gas chamber.
"The pardons board itself asked the Arizona attorney general not to seek the death penalty because Martinez Villareal is not mentally sound," Beltran told EFE.
In October 1982, Martinez Villareal and his accomplice stole a number of guns from a house in the town of Patagonia, where they killed two yard workers, James T. McGrew and Fernando Estrada Babichi, as they fled.
Although prosecutors were unable to establish whether Martinez Villareal was in fact the shooter, he was found guilty of the murders.
Roberto Rodriguez Hernandez, head of consular affairs at the Mexican Foreign Secretariat, said nearly 40 Mexican nationals are sitting on death row in the United States. The two in Arizona are appealing their sentences.
Rodriguez said he plans to ask the Attorney General's Office in Arizona to have Martinez Villareal transferred to a mental hospital.