# The execution of Humberto Leal Garcia **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 11, 2011, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676 "2011-07-11T22:07:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/61 "2011-07-12T14:40:54Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The Supreme Court ruled that the person needs to raise the issue before or at trial, not four years after conviction. Which seems to me to be consistent with the notion that any questioning of nationality based on skin color is racist and so on. > > If he wants to be treated as a foreign national, it is up to him to make it clear that he is a foreign national. Of course, to be fair he probably didn’t know that he wasn’t a US citizen. > > Cite by Captain Amazing - > > Doesn’t look to me like Texas violated any treaties. The arrestee has to ask, according to the terms of the treaty. This scumbag didn’t ask. Plus, the nasty little son-of-a-bitch wasn’t in custody when he incriminated himself, so the consular lawyers aren’t going to be able to tell him to keep silent. > Because it doesn’t make any difference, once he is convicted. As the treaty says, he has to request that his consulate be notified. If he fails to do so, and is convicted, it is no longer relevant. > > Regards, > Shodan It’s not racist if every single person who is arrested is asked questions that might have some relationship to nationality, which for that matter is not the same thing as asking about lawful U.S. immigration status. Hell, two of my four grandparents were not U.S.-born, and even now I have no idea what their immigration status was (long story). One was born in Latvia and came to the U.S. as an infant, and the other was born in Canada and came to the U.S. as a teenager. You’d never have guessed by looking at or talking to them that they were not born in the U.S. There are millions of U.S. residents who are not citizens, many of them here perfectly legally as permanent residents or otherwise. Asking about birthplace or nationality does not necessarily mean you are trying to figure out who is here legally, or that you’re singling out brown people – as I have said many, many times before, the devil is in the details. And for that matter, when I worked in Immigration Court, the second most common foreign language interpreter we needed to order? Yep, Polish. ---
**Author:** ![Smitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Smitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smitty)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/62 "2011-07-12T14:57:21Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Because next month a law might be passed which the Supreme Court has said would make Garcia’s execution illegal. I think that’s a pretty compelling reason to wait a month. Nonsense. Anything “might” happen. The legal system can only act on the law as it is, not on some theoretical possibility. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/63 "2011-07-12T15:41:16Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > You honestly can’t see a difference between officers asking about the immigration status of random people they encounter on the street, and an officer asking about the birthplace of a murder suspect at some point between initial interrogation and a Supreme Court appeal? Yes, I can see that difference. Can you see the difference between a chair and a laser beam? I ask because it appears that the game is to name things that have no relation to any subject under discussion, such as you did when you asked about “officers asking about the immigration status of random people they encounter on the street,” a description that has nothing to do with any Arizona law at all. So let me ask you a question: Suppose the officers routinely ask people if they are citizens of the United States when they first enounter them in any situation in which the person is suspected of some wrongdoing. And suppose the individual is here illegally but lies, claiming United States citizenship, in an effort to avoid deportation. Has the United States met its obligations under the Vienna Convention? > [@](#): > > There were numerous opportunities to provide him with his treaty rights. Even if he’d been given the opportunity to request consular assistance after his initial confession, who knows how things might have turned out differently? The first appeals court to consider his appeal knows, because they judge it to be harmless error. That is, even if he had consular assistance at that point, there was no meaningful probablity that his conviction could have been avoided. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/64 "2011-07-12T15:48:15Z")
> [@Smitty](#): > > Nonsense. Anything “might” happen. The legal system can only act on the law as it is, not on some theoretical possibility. Indeed. In any given year, approximately 4% of bills become laws. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/65 "2011-07-12T15:52:16Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > So let me ask you a question: > > Suppose the officers routinely ask people if they are citizens of the United States when they first enounter them in any situation in which the person is suspected of some wrongdoing. And suppose the individual is here illegally but lies, claiming United States citizenship, in an effort to avoid deportation. Why make the officer have to determine nationality at all? At some point when the detainee is being read his/her rights, include the statement: “If you are the citizen of a country other than the U.S., you have the right to contact your country’s consulate.” Include that statement for all people, and suddenly no one is making assumptions about nationality and bonus: the U.S. gets to abide by at least one part of one treaty. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/66 "2011-07-12T15:57:38Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I think it’s a pretty compelling reason to execute him first. We shouldn’t want to execute people. Wanting to kill should be left to people like Humberto Leal Garcia. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/67 "2011-07-12T16:07:06Z")
> [@ctnguy](#): > > Even if Congress enacts a law enforcing the Vienna Convention, would it be able to apply retroactively to people whose rights under the convention were infringed before the law was passed? Technically it wasn’t retroactive. The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations was signed in 1963. Garcia’s crimes were committed in 1994. The International Court of Justice issued a decision in 2004 that said that the treaty had been violated in cases like Garcia’s. The United States Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the International Court’s decision was binding in the United States. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/68 "2011-07-12T16:10:38Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > We shouldn’t want to execute people. Wanting to kill should be left to people like Humberto Leal Garcia. …and wanting to lock people in cages should be left to kidnappers. And fines are kinda sorta like armed robbery, even – in that we shouldn’t want to fine or jail or execute innocent folks, but guilty people like Garcia are astoundingly legitimate targets. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/69 "2011-07-12T16:10:41Z")
> [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#): > > Why make the officer have to determine nationality at all? At some point when the detainee is being read his/her rights, include the statement: “If you are the citizen of a country other than the U.S., you have the right to contact your country’s consulate.” Include that statement for all people, and suddenly no one is making assumptions about nationality and bonus: the U.S. gets to abide by at least one part of one treaty. No problem with that as far as I’m concerned … but it wouldn’t have made any difference in this case, since the confession was obtained before the accused was in custody, and therefore he was not read any rights at all before he inculpated himself. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/70 "2011-07-12T16:16:52Z")
So we can argue about the actual text, here’s Article 36 Section 1(a) of the Vienna Convention: > [@](#): > > If he so requests, the competent authorities of the receiving State shall, without delay, inform the consular post of the sending State if, within its consular district, a national of that State is arrested or committed to prison or to custody pending trial or is detained in any other manner. Any communication addressed to the consular post by the person arrested, in prison, custody or detention shall be forwarded by the said authorities without delay. The said authorities shall inform the person concerned without delay of his rights under this subparagraph. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/71 "2011-07-12T16:21:40Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Technically it wasn’t retroactive. The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations was signed in 1963. Garcia’s crimes were committed in 1994. The International Court of Justice issued a decision in 2004 that said that the treaty had been violated in cases like Garcia’s. The United States Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the International Court’s decision was binding in the United States. They did? > [@US Supreme COurt in 2008](#): > > In the Case Concerning Avena and Other Mexican Nationals (Mex. v. U. S.), 2004 I. C. J. 12 (Avena), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held that the United States had violated Article 36(1)(b) of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (Vienna Convention or Convention) by failing to inform 51 named Mexican nationals, including petitioner Medellín, of their Vienna Convention rights. > . > . > . > While a treaty may constitute an international commitment, it is not binding domestic law unless Congress has enacted statutes implementing it or the treaty itself conveys an intention that it be “self-executing” and is ratified on that basis. . . The Avena judgment creates an international law obligation on the part of the United States, but it is not automatically binding domestic law because none of the relevant treaty sources–the Optional Protocol, the U. N. Charter, or the ICJ Statute–creates binding federal law in the absence of implementing legislation, and no such legislation has been enacted. > > ``` > The most natural reading of the Optional Protocol is that it is a bare grant of jurisdiction. The Protocol says nothing about the effect of an ICJ decision, does not commit signatories to comply therewith, and is silent as to any enforcement mechanism. The obligation to comply with ICJ judgments is derived from Article 94 of the U. N. Charter, which provides that "[e]ach ... Member ... undertakes to comply with the [ICJ's] decision ... in any case to which it is a party." The phrase "undertakes to comply" is simply a commitment by member states to take future action through their political branches. That language does not indicate that the Senate, in ratifying the Optional Protocol, intended to vest ICJ decisions with immediate legal effect in domestic courts. > > ``` That must have been a schizophrenic Court in 2008, to write that decision in Medellin, and then write whatever you were thinking of. What case was it you were thinking of? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/72 "2011-07-12T16:28:35Z")
There _is_ a reasonable argument to be made that the treaty is self executing. I don’t think any of the other arguments made here are reasonable, especially in light of the backlash against the Arizona nationality-status law. ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/73 "2011-07-12T16:45:34Z")
I read somewhere that the intent when ratified was that the treaty was self-executing. So I’d say it’s pretty reasonable, too. However, _Medellin_ says differently, so it’s not self-executing. Even without federal law implementing the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (Art. 36 specifically), the State Department advises State/Local law enforcement to comply with it. They also give advice on how to comply with it if you’re unsure if someone is a foreign national (they don’t claim to be one, they don’t have a passport or greencard, ect.). [State Department Website](http://travel.state.gov/law/consular/consular_753.html): Lots of fun links to click on (mostly PDF’s). From one link: When unsure, ask “Are you a US Citizen?” Seems pretty straightforward. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/74 "2011-07-12T16:51:03Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > That must have been a schizophrenic Court in 2008, to write that decision in Medellin, and then write whatever you were thinking of. What case was it you were thinking of? Sigh. I was trying to summarize the timeline not deliver a legal treatise. Okay, what the Supreme Court said in 2008 was that the International Court’s decision was binding in the United States if certain other provisions were also met. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/75 "2011-07-12T16:52:11Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Because it doesn’t make any difference, once he is convicted. As the treaty says, he has to request that his consulate be notified. If he fails to do so, and is convicted, it is no longer relevant. My question was rather : how comes they didn’t realize he wasn’t an American citizen during the inquiry? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/76 "2011-07-12T16:54:51Z")
They almost certainly did, at which point he should have been informed of his right to consular access. As I pointed out above, though, it wouldn’t have made any difference because he’d already confessed. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/77 "2011-07-12T16:55:14Z")
> [@CoolHandCox](#): > > From one link: When unsure, ask “Are you a US Citizen?” Seems pretty straightforward. In the long discussions about the Arizona law, I said that police could handle that law by doing the same thing: asking everyone they encounter if the person were an American citizen. Many people felt this was a poor idea, and even envisioned handing out flyers to the illegal immigrant community advising them to lie and say they were citizens in response to this query. So my question is: to all those who though that such a response was a good idea in the context of the Arizona law, do you agree that the US state or federal officials meet their Vienna Convention requirement by asking this question? ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/78 "2011-07-12T16:55:16Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’d find the non-existence of a law acceptable grounds if it had never been introduced. But in this case, a bill had apparently been introduced at the time of Garcia’s execution. The court should have waited until the outcome of the bill was settled, not decided to execute now and then find out afterwards whether or not the law was passed that made the execution illegal. I note that the 27th amendment to the Constitution was introduced in 1789, and ratified in 1992. Should the Court have deferred consideration of questions arising from Congressional salaries pending passage of the amendment for the whole of the 204 years it was working its way through the process? ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/79 "2011-07-12T17:04:09Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > In the long discussions about the Arizona law, I said that police could handle that law by doing the same thing: asking everyone they encounter if the person were an American citizen. Let me clarify, the State Department only advises to ask that question once someone has been arrested/detained/booked. So I don’t think it’s proper to ask everyone the police encounters (nor required by Vienna Convention Art. 36). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2011, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676/80 "2011-07-12T17:08:43Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > There _is_ a reasonable argument to be made that the treaty is self executing. I don’t think any of the other arguments made here are reasonable, especially in light of the backlash against the Arizona nationality-status law. The Constitution says _“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.”_ Now to a simple person like me, this appears to say that treaties are law and judges are bound by them. There’s nothing in the Constitution about a treaty being self-executing or non-self-executing. I’d be tempted to believe that the majority in the Medellin decision used a process of “making it up” but I am repeatedly assured that these justices never make thing up and base their decisions exclusively on the text of the Constitution. So I must assume I have an abridged Constitution that doesn’t include the part that discusses non-self-executing treaties. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-execution-of-humberto-leal-garcia/588676.md?page=5)