USA - Texas. Humberto Leal, 38, hispanic, was executed despite Obama's pressures

Humberto Leal, 38, hispanic, was executed. CloseIn a 5-to-4 decision that split along ideological lines, the Supreme Court in the evening rebuffed a request from the Obama administration that it stay the execution of a Mexican citizen on death row in Texas. Leal was executed about an hour later. The administration had asked the court to delay the execution so that Congress might consider recently introduced legislation that would provide fresh hearings on whether the rights of Mr. Leal and about 50 other Mexican citizens on death row in the United States had been violated. In his last moments, Mr. Leal repeatedly said he was sorry, and shouted twice, “Viva Mexico!” In 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague found that the inmates had been denied their rights under the Vienna Convention. The convention requires that foreigners detained abroad be told they may contact consular officials. In 2008, the Supreme Court acknowledged that the international court’s ruling was binding but said that the president acting alone could not compel states to comply with it. Congress also had to act, the court said. Today, 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.” Justice Stephen G. Breyer, in a dissent joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, wrote that the government’s request was modest, given that allowing the execution to proceed would, in the solicitor general’s words, “cause irreparable harm” to “foreign-policy interests of the highest order” and endanger Americans traveling abroad. Texas Gov. Rick Perry had declined to intervene in the Garcia case, and the Texas Board of Paroles and Pardons voted on Tuesday to allow the execution to proceed. "Texas is not bound by a foreign court's ruling," said Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Perry. "If you commit the most heinous of crimes in Texas, you can expect to face the ultimate penalty under our laws." At least one prominent Republican directly criticized Perry, who is being courted by conservative activists to enter the 2012 presidential race, for failing to intervene in the case. "I think his position is a parochial position," said John B. Bellinger III, the State Department's top attorney under President George W. Bush. "It's undercutting the ability of the State Department to protect all Americans, including Texans, when we travel outside the United States." Whether the outcome of the case will impact Perry's national ambitions is questionable, however -- particularly since Garcia had some important final words. In the moments before his execution, Garcia confessed to his crimes, adding a final twist to his lengthy legal saga, which had spanned more than 15 years and dozens of appeals and decisions by courts from San Antonio to The Hague. Since his arrest, he had steadfastly denied raping and murdering Sauceda. "I am sorry for the victim's family for what I had did," he said. "May they forgive me." Garcia was the seventh inmate put to death in Texas this year.