DPI’s “What to Know” series examines capital punishment from multiple angles, one topic at a time. Each installment provides essential facts and data on specific aspects of the death penalty.
Why it matters: More than 100 citizens of other countries are under sentences of death in the United States, and in nearly every reported case, arresting authorities failed to promptly inform them of their treaty right to consular assistance.
- Article 36 of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) requires local authorities to inform all detained foreigners “without delay” of their right to have their consulate notified and to communicate with consular representatives. The U.S. ratified the treaty without reservations in 1969, and 182 countries are now parties. The U.S. has also negotiated bilateral agreements with about 50 countries under which consular notification is mandatory regardless of the detainee’s wishes.
- 102 foreign nationals from 28 countries were under sentence of death in the U.S. as of September 22, 2025, according to data compiled for DPI by Mark Warren of Human Rights Research. Because states do not reliably record nationality, experts estimate that a complete count would likely reach about 145 people, or roughly 5% of the national death row population.
- Mexican nationals are the largest group, with 44 of the active death sentences. By jurisdiction, California holds the most (56), followed by Texas (14) and Florida (12).
- 34 foreign nationals have been executed in the modern era of the U.S. death penalty, most recently Roberto Moreno Ramos (Mexico) in Texas on November 14, 2018. In all but one reported case, authorities did not inform the person upon arrest of the right to have their consulate notified.
- Researchers have identified only seven cases of complete compliance with the consular notification requirements of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, out of more than 160 reported death sentences imposed on foreign nationals.
- Since 1973, at least seven foreign nationals sentenced to death in the U.S. have been exonerated, including Vicente Benavides Figueroa (Mexico, California, 2018) and Clemente Aguirre Jarquin (Honduras, Florida, 2018). Consular intervention was documented in at least five of the seven cases.
Key Facts
- Documented compliance with the VCCR is rare. In most reported cases, detained nationals learned of their consular rights weeks, months, or years after arrest, typically from attorneys or other prisoners rather than from authorities. Arizona did not formally inform German nationals Karl and Walter LaGrand of their Article 36 rights until 17 years after their arrest, weeks before their 1999 executions. Records produced in a 1997 New York lawsuit showed police logged consular notification in only four of more than 53,000 arrests of foreign nationals in the city that year.
- Consular assistance shapes the quality of the defense. Consuls often fund and provide counsel, provide interpreters, and help defense teams gather records and mitigating evidence from the defendant’s home country — assistance available at trial only if notification occurs promptly. Of 235 known capital cases involving foreign nationals tracked through September 22, 2025, 74 ended in reduced sentences and 13 in commutations, most often on grounds of intellectual disability, ineffective assistance of counsel, or official misconduct. In December 2020, the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the reversal of Mexican national Carlos Gutierrez’s death sentence because the consular rights violation in his case resulted in ineffective assistance of counsel; Mr. Gutierrez was resentenced to life without parole in 2023. Mexico’s Capital Legal Assistance Program, created in 2000, funds experienced capital defense to represent Mexican nationals in the U.S.
- A large majority of death-sentenced foreign nationals were lawfully present in the United States. Of the 54 Mexican nationals whose cases were first brought before the International Court of Justice in Avena, the U.S. alleged only five had ever entered the country illegally. A 2020 DPI analysis also found that foreign nationals with intellectual disability are disproportionately likely to be sentenced to death.
Legal Landscape
U.S. and international courts have addressed consular rights in capital cases repeatedly and reached opposite conclusions about the remedy:
- Breard v. Greene (1998): The U.S. Supreme Court held VCCR claims are subject to state procedural default rules — a prisoner whose lawyer failed to raise the violation in state court loses the claim, even where authorities caused the violation.
- LaGrand (Germany v. United States) (2001): The International Court of Justice (ICJ) held Article 36 creates individual rights and procedural default rules cannot bar review of violations.
- Avena and Other Mexican Nationals (Mexico v. United States) (2004): The ICJ found the U.S. violated Article 36 in 51 of 52 reviewed cases of Mexican nationals sentenced to death and ordered judicial review of their convictions and sentences. In 2005, the U.S. withdrew from the treaty protocol giving the ICJ jurisdiction over such disputes.
- Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon (2006): The U.S. Supreme Court held suppression of evidence is not a remedy for Article 36 violations and reaffirmed procedural default rules apply.
- Medellin v. Texas (2008): The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Avena judgment is not binding domestic law without an act of Congress. Implementing legislation, including the Consular Notification Compliance Act of 2011, has been introduced repeatedly but never enacted. Texas executed Jose Medellin on August 5, 2008.
- Garcia v. Texas (2011): The U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay, 5 – 4, for Humberto Leal Garcia while the 2011 bill was pending; Texas executed Mr. Leal on July 7, 2011. In total, six Mexican nationals covered by the Avena judgment have been executed in Texas since the ruling, none with the judicial review the ICJ ordered.
Case in Point: Angel Breard
Angel Francisco Breard, a citizen of Paraguay, was arrested in Virginia in 1992 without being informed of his consular rights. Against the advice of his court-appointed lawyers, he rejected a plea offer that would have spared his life and insisted on testifying, telling the jury a satanic curse compelled his crime — decisions his advocates said reflected a misunderstanding of the U.S. legal system, and decisions early consular advice could have corrected. After Paraguay filed suit, the International Court of Justice unanimously ordered the U.S. to take all measures at its disposal to prevent the execution pending review. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright asked Virginia’s governor for a stay, warning the execution could “limit our ability to insure that Americans are protected when living or traveling abroad,” while the U.S. Justice Department simultaneously argued against a stay before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court declined to intervene, holding the treaty claim procedurally defaulted, and Virginia executed Mr. Breard on April 14, 1998.
Relevant/Current Cases
Oklahoma has scheduled the execution of Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez for August 13, 2026, with a clemency hearing before the state Pardon and Parole Board on July 14, 2026. Mr. Cuesta-Rodriguez, now 70, emigrated from Cuba during the 1980 Mariel boatlift and was sentenced to death for the 2003 murder of Olimpia Fisher in Oklahoma City. His attorneys describe childhood physical abuse, brain damage from a childhood accident requiring skull surgery, and a current diagnosis of dementia; Attorney General Gentner Drummond has asked the board to deny clemency. No foreign national has been executed in the U.S. since November 2018, and Mr. Cuesta-Rodriguez does not appear on the Human Rights Research list, which notes state records of nationality are incomplete.
Linda Carty, a British national born in St. Kitts when the island was a British colony, was sentenced to death in Texas in February 2002 for the 2001 kidnapping and murder of Joana Rodriguez. In a 2010 brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, the British government said Texas authorities did not promptly notify British consular officials of her detention, in breach of international law, and her trial counsel made no attempt to correct the failure; her lawyers argue consular assistance would have produced substantial mitigating evidence, including a psychiatric assessment documenting a history of abuse and trauma. Ms. Carty maintains her innocence.
Federal action has moved in both directions. On December 23, 2024, President Joe Biden commuted the federal death sentences of 37 people to life without parole, including three foreign nationals: Alejandro Umaña (El Salvador), Jurijus Kadamovas (Lithuania), and Iouri Mikhel (Russia). On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Attorney General to pursue the death penalty for every federal capital crime committed by a person unlawfully present in the United States, and encouraging state prosecutors to do the same, although available data indicate most death-sentenced foreign nationals were lawfully present. Executions nationwide rose to 47 in 2025, the highest total in 16 years, with 16 more carried out in the first half of 2026.
Global Perspective
The U.N. Human Rights Committee and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have both stated that imposing the death penalty after an unremedied consular rights violation constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of the right to life. In a 2019 report, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions concluded consular access for foreign nationals facing the death penalty is a human right. The obligation runs in both directions: the U.S. Department of State considers consular notification so fundamental it treats the requirement as customary international law in all cases, and U.S. citizens arrested abroad depend on the same protections. More than 70% of the world’s countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice, and foreign governments — including Mexico, which abolished the death penalty in 2005 — have repeatedly intervened in U.S. capital cases on behalf of their citizens.
