Texas Set to Execute Mexican National Despite Treaty Violations, Innocence Claim

Texas plans to execute a Mexican national on November 8, despite claims that he is innocent and that Texas violated U.S. international treaty obligations by denying him access to legal assistance from his government. Senior Mexican diplomats called the death sentence imposed on Ruben Ramírez Cárdenas (pictured) “illegal” and a violation of due process. In a news conference in Mexico City on November 6, Carlos Sada, Mexico’s deputy foreign minister for North America, said “From the start, there has been a failure, and from our perspective, this is an illegal act.” Cárdenas was convicted and sentenced to death in Hidalgo County in 1998 for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of his 15-year-old cousin. No physical evidence links him to the crime, and his lawyers say there is no forensic evidence of sexual intercourse or any sexual assault. In a pleading filed with Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, his lawyer, Maurie Levin, has sought a stay of execution to obtain DNA testing of scrapings taken from under the victim’s fingernails, arguing that that Cárdenas’s “conviction and death sentence bear all the indicia of a wrongful conviction.” Those indicators, she writes, include “questionable eyewitness testimony, coerced, uncounseled confessions, and unreliable forensic evidence.” Prosecutors have opposed permitting the DNA testing. Despite U.S. treaty obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations requiring law enforcement to notify foreign citizens of their right to assistance from their nation’s consulate, police failed to notify Mexico of Cárdenas’s arrest or Cárdenas of his right to speak with officials from his government. Levin said that Cárdenas repeatedly asked for a lawyer, but that the state did not appoint counsel for 11 days, during which time he was subject to interrogation and gave a series of inconsistent statements, including a coerced confession that was inconsistent with the physical evidence. Eyewitnesses to the abduction—including the victim’s sister, who knew Cárdenas—either did not identify Cárdenas in statements they gave to police or gave descriptions of the assailant that did not match Cárdenas. Mexico did not learn of Cárdenas’s arrest for five months, and has been attempting to assist him since that time. In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention rights of 51 Mexican nationals sentenced to death in the United States, including Cárdenas, and ordered that foreign nationals whose consular rights are violated must be provided judicial review to determine whether that violation influenced the outcome of their cases. Cárdenas has sought review of his case in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which has granted “precautionary measures”—a form of injunction—against his execution until the treaty violation is adjudicated. However, in 2008, in a case in which Texas failed to provide such a hearing to Jose Ernesto Medellin, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that although the world court decision “constitutes an international law obligation” on the United States, it is nevertheless unenforceable against the states unless and until Congress passes legislation, which Congress has yet to do. Since then, a number of foreign nationals have been executed in the U.S. in violation of international treaty obligations without judicial review of their treaty claims. Gregory Kuykendall, a lawyer who represents Mexico, said “It’s a significant treaty violation. … What separates us from anarchy is our commitment to due process and that’s the processes of the laws that are in effect in both the United States as well as internationally.” Cárdenas has never been granted review of his treaty claim in the U.S. courts.

(“Mexico says upcoming U.S. execution of national is ‘illegal’,” Reuters, November 6, 2017; S. Marloff, “Forced Testimony Over Evidence? No physical evidence implicates Cardenas in his cousin’s murder,” Austin Chronicle, November 3, 2017; K. Balkinger, “Mexican national set for execution in Texas files last-minute appeal over DNA testing,” Houston Chronicle, November 1, 2017; K. Blakinger, “Texas set to execute Mexican national amid international dispute,” Houston Chronicle, October 27, 2017.) Read the International Court of Justice’s opinion in Case Concerning Avena and Other Mexican Nationals (Mar. 31, 2004) and the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Medellin v. Texas, No. 06-984 (March 25, 2008). See Foreign Nationals and Innocence.