Death Row

Foreign Nationals

Some people on death row in the U.S. are citizens of other countries, raising human rights issues and questions of U.S. compliance with international treaties.

DPIC Analysis: The Issue of Foreign Nationals in the Courts

DPIC Analysis: The Issue of Foreign Nationals in the Courts

The Issue of Foreign Nationals in U.S. and International Courts

DPIC Page: International

DPIC Page: International

More than 70% of the world’s countries have abolished capital punishment in law or practice. The U.S. is an outlier among its close allies in its continued use of the death penalty.

Overview

Some of those on death row in the U.S. are cit­i­zens of oth­er coun­tries. Most nations of the world, includ­ing the U.S., are par­ties to a treaty (Vienna Convention on Consular Relations) gov­ern­ing the treat­ment of one nation’s cit­i­zens when they are arrest­ed in anoth­er coun­try that is a par­ty to the treaty. Among oth­er pro­tec­tions, the treaty requires that the arrest­ing author­i­ties inform all for­eign detainees with­out delay of their right to have their con­sulate prompt­ly noti­fied of the arrest so that legal aid and oth­er forms of assis­tance can be provided.

The U.S. has not always abid­ed by the pro­vi­sions of this treaty, par­tic­u­lar­ly when the for­eign nation­al is being held by state author­i­ties. The Supreme Court has per­mit­ted numer­ous exe­cu­tions to go for­ward despite vio­la­tions of the treaty, say­ing that fed­er­al courts lack the pow­er to address the issue if the lawyer appoint­ed to rep­re­sent the pris­on­er failed to time­ly raise it in the state courts. At least 34 for­eign nation­als have been exe­cut­ed in the mod­ern era of the U.S. death penal­ty. Most had raised a claim that they had not been advised of their right to con­sular noti­fi­ca­tion and that the result­ing lack of con­sular assis­tance harmed their defense. Nevertheless, progress has been made in inform­ing law enforce­ment author­i­ties of their oblig­a­tions under the treaty.

At Issue

International courts and tri­bunals — includ­ing the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights — have found that the United States has vio­lat­ed inter­na­tion­al law in the cas­es of death-sen­tenced for­eign­ers by fail­ing to com­ply with this treaty. As a rem­e­dy, the ICJ ruled that the United States must pro­vide effec­tive judi­cial review of Vienna Convention vio­la­tions in death penal­ty cas­es. However, while the U.S. is bound under inter­na­tion­al law to com­ply with the ICJ judg­ment, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that requir­ing states to com­ply with the treaty requires an act of Congress. The posi­tion of the U.S. in this mat­ter has raised con­cerns about reci­procity: will U.S. cit­i­zens in for­eign coun­tries be able to effec­tive­ly invoke their Vienna Convention pro­tec­tions when arrested?

What DPIC Offers

Through the work of Human Rights Research, DPIC has lists of all for­eign nation­als on U.S. death rows and all for­eign nation­als exe­cut­ed in the mod­ern era. DPIC has issued a report on the inter­na­tion­al impli­ca­tions of its death penal­ty and keeps track of court deci­sions on this mat­ter both in the U.S. and internationally.


News & Developments


News

Oct 02, 2020

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Reverses Course, Takes A Second Foreign National with Intellectual Disability Off Death Row

For sec­ond time in eight days, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has reversed course after ini­tial­ly reject­ing a death-row prisoner’s claim of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and has resen­tenced the pris­on­er to life. The deci­sions, both involv­ing for­eign nation­als and both sup­port­ed by local pros­e­cu­tors, marked the sixth and sev­enth time that Texas courts have vacat­ed death sen­tences imposed on intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled cap­i­tal defen­dants since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2017

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News

May 22, 2019

Two Foreign Nationals Receive New Trials as U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Hear State Death-Penalty Appeals

Two for­eign nation­als who were sen­tenced to death in unre­lat­ed cas­es will receive new tri­als after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear appeals of low­er court rul­ings over­turn­ing their con­vic­tions. Jose Echavarria (pic­tured, left), a Nevada pris­on­er orig­i­nal­ly from Cuba, and Ahmad Issa (pic­tured, right), an Ohio pris­on­er orig­i­nal­ly from Jordan, each were award­ed new tri­als by fed­er­al appel­late court deci­sions in 2018. The…

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News

Dec 21, 2018

NEW PODCAST: DPIC’s 2018 Year End Report

In the lat­est pod­cast episode of Discussions with DPIC, mem­bers of the DPIC staff dis­cuss key themes from the 2018 Year End Report. Robert Dunham, Ngozi Ndulue, and Anne Holsinger delve into the major death-penal­ty trends and news items of the year, includ­ing the extend­ed trend” of gen­er­a­tional lows in death sen­tenc­ing and exe­cu­tions, elec­tion results that indi­cate the decline will like­ly con­tin­ue, and the pos­si­ble impact of Pope Francis’s change to Catholic…

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