USA - Texas. Important clemency petition filed in behalf of Humberto Leal, a Mexican citizen

On June 7 a clemency petition was filed with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles requesting a halt to the July-7 execution of Humberto Leal, a Mexican citizen who was not advised of his consular rights upon arrest for a murder in San Antonio in 1994. Leal was convicted of raping and killing a 16-year-old girl in 1994. Today a group of persons, including former FBI Director William Sessions and former Texas Governor Mark White, wrote Perry saying that executing Leal would violate international law and place U.S. citizens in other countries, from soldiers to tourists, at risk. Mexico's ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhan, has also asked that the execution be halted. The petition was accompanied by letters from former U.S. diplomats, retired military leaders, former prosecutors and judges, and associations of Americans living abroad calling for a stay of execution until Congress can pass legislation to guarantee proper notification in such cases.  The U.S. is a party to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations that requires officials to inform foreign nationals of their right to contact their consulate when arrested. The treaty is designed to protect both U.S. citizens abroad and citizens of other countries in the U.S. Among the signers of the letter from retired military officers were Rear Admiral Don Guter, USN, Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, USN, and Brigadier General James P. Cullen, USA.  They wrote: "International consular notification and access obligations are essential to ensuring humane, non-discriminatory treatment for both non-citizens in U.S. custody and U.S. citizens in the custody of foreign governments. As retired military leaders, we understand that the preservation of consular access protections is especially important for U.S. military personnel, who when serving our country overseas are at greater risk of being arrested by a foreign government." Texas executes more criminals than any other state, and that has long caused friction with Mexico, which has no death penalty. In 2002, Texas executed Mexican citizen Javier Suarez Medina over the objections of then-President Vicente Fox. In march 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled on behalf of Mexican citizens on U.S. death rows that the U.S. was in violation of the Vienna Convention and held that hearings should be held to review the fairness of the convictions and sentences of the Mexican nationals. Texas has refused to conduct such hearings. In 2008, the case of Jose Medellin, a Mexican citizen convicted of a rape and murder in Texas, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of whether he was improperly denied consular assistance. He too was executed on Aug. 3 (see). In that case, on March 25, 2008 (see) the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that in order for an international law such as the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations to be binding on the states, Congress has to first pass laws implementing it. The U.S. government has signed the Vienna convention but Congress has not passed a law to implement it. Leal's attorneys point to the poor representation that he received at trial as evidence of the importance of assistance from the Mexican consulate. The U.S. diplomats, including former U.S. Representative to the U.N. Thomas Pickering, wrote: "Clearly, the safety and well-being of Americans abroad is endangered by the United States maintaining the double standard of protesting denials of consular notification and access to its own citizens while simultaneously failing to comply with its obligation to remedy identical violations." Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed told Reuters that "the governor would have to receive a favourable recommendation from the Board of Pardons and Paroles to consider the clemency requested."