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. The peti­tion was accom­pa­nied by let­ters from for­mer U.S. diplo­mats, retired mil­i­tary lead­ers, for­mer pros­e­cu­tors and judges, and asso­ca­tions 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.”

In 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 con­victi­nos and sen­tences of the Mexican nation­als. Texas has refused to con­duct such hear­ings, despite an order from then-President George W. Bush to do so. The U.S. Supreme Court held that Congress needs to pass imple­ment­ing leg­is­la­tion regard­ing the enforce­ment of the Vienna Convention in order to bind Texas to con­duct hear­ings. It is expect­ed that such leg­is­la­tion will be intro­duced soon. 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.”

(P. Malof, ​“Bipartisan Agreement: TX Execution Threatens Safety of Americans Abroad,” Public News Service, June 7, 2011). Letter of for­mer mil­i­tary lead­ers; let­ter of for­mer U.S. diplo­mats. See www​.HumbertoLeal​.org for more infor­ma­tion. See also Foreign Nationals.

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