When cit­i­zens of oth­er coun­tries are arrest­ed in the U.S., spe­cial noti­fi­ca­tion pro­ce­dures are required under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a treaty that the U.S. has signed and rat­i­fied. These same pro­ce­dures apply to U.S. cit­i­zens arrest­ed in oth­er coun­tries. There are over 130 peo­ple on death row in the U.S. from oth­er coun­tries, and many of them were not afford­ed their noti­fi­ca­tion rights under the Vienna Convention. Linda Carty is a British nation­al on Texas’ death row from St. Kitts. She could face exe­cu­tion if her request for a retri­al is denied. She cur­rent­ly has a peti­tion before the U.S. Supreme Court claim­ing she received inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion dur­ing her orig­i­nal tri­al and that the United Kingdom could have pro­vid­ed addi­tion­al legal sup­port if the prop­er pro­ce­dures had been fol­lowed in her case. Carty’s attor­neys assert that Texas author­i­ties neglect­ed to inform the British Consulate that she held a UK depen­dent-ter­ri­to­ry pass­port. Carty has always main­tained her inno­cence of the mur­der that placed her on death row.

(“Death row Briton Linda Carty pleas to US Supreme Court,” BBC News, February 26, 2010). Click here for more infor­ma­tion on Linda Carty from Reprieve, includ­ing a video from Bianca Jagger about this case. See Bianca Jagger’s recent arti­cle in the Huffington Post. See also Foreign Nationals and Women.

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