Alone in the World: The U.S. and the Death Penalty

By Kari Lydersen, AlterNet. Posted February 10, 2003.

So President W. Bush is eager to go to war with Iraq, killing thousands of Iraqis as well as U.S. troops, without the support of the European Union and most of the international community. We shouldn’t be surprised. Ever since he was governor of Texas, he’s been killing people, via the electric chair and lethal injection, despite international outcry and the pleas of foreign governments.

In 1997, when he was Texas governor, Bush executed Mexican citizen Ireneo Tristan Montoya despite the demands of then-Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo that he should be spared since he had not been allowed to consult with his consulate as mandated in the Vienna Convention. According to the Mexican brief to the court, Bush said Texas did not have to obey the Vienna Convention because it was the U.S. government, not Texas itself, which had signed it.

Last year President Vicente Fox canceled a trip to Texas in protest over the execution of another Mexican citizen. And last month the Mexican government filed suit against the U.S. in the World Court, the United Nations body for resolving disputes between nations, demanding the U.S. commute the death sentences of the 51 Mexican nationals on death row. The suit argues that the men's rights to consular assistance were violated, and notes that many of them were interrogated and convicted in English despite their not having a good grasp of the language.

On Feb. 5, the 15-member court ordered the U.S. must stay the execution of the three Mexicans whose executions were most imminent. The court ordered the U.S. to prove it is implementing the orders, given that in 1999, the state of Arizona ignored the World Court's order for a stay and went ahead and executed German national Walter LaGrand, who had not been informed of his right to consular assistance.

This pattern continued last week when, on Feb. 4, British citizen Jackie Elliott was executed in Texas by lethal injection for the 1986 gang rape and murder of a woman. This despite his legal team's pleas that DNA evidence could clear him, and despite the efforts of British foreign secretary Jack Straw and a petition signed by 134 MPs in the House of Commons seeking to halt the execution. Conservative MP John Gummer told the BBC it was "a sad day for American justice."

Even Pravda, the Russian newspaper not known for its soft-heartedness, recently weighed in on international outrage at the use of the death penalty in the U.S., and in Texas in particular. "International investors are more and more concerned about the human rights situation in Texas," editorialized the paper. "The Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty has called for a tourist boycott of Texas and many government leaders asked the United States and Texas to revoke the death penalty and respect human rights on this issue."

The U.S. has executed at least 15 foreigners since reinstating the death penalty in 1976, and 97 foreigners currently sit on death row around the country, according to Amnesty International. The U.S. and Japan are the only so-called "civilized democracies" which still practice the death penalty. According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP), the U.S. ranks third in the world in executions behind China and Saudi Arabia. Other countries that regularly use the death penalty include Iran, Nigeria, the Congo, and, our current enemy-de-jour, Iraq.

“Bush is ignorant inside and outside the country,” said NCADP communications director David Elliot. “He doesn’t care what our allies think of our use of the death penalty.”

But Bush’s hard-headedness aside, international pressure and opinion is slowly but surely having an influence on U.S. policy and sentiment regarding capital punishment.

When former Illinois Governor George Ryan made his historic speech commuting the sentences of everyone on the state's death row on Jan. 11, he credited former South African President Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Mexican President Fox with influencing his decision. All three had contacted him in the days before the announcement to express their support for pardons and commutations, and the Pope also sent word through an underling.

"Today the United States is not in league with most of our major allies: Europe, Canada, Mexico, most of South and Central America," said Ryan. "These countries rejected the death penalty. We are partners in death with several third world countries. Even Russia has called a moratorium." Ryan's commutations included three Mexican citizens, Juan Caballero, Gabriel Solache and Mario Flores. He reduced Flores's term to 40 years, meaning he will likely be out in 2004, when he will be deported to Mexico.

The Mexican consulate in Chicago had actively defended all three men, arguing that Solache and Flores are innocent and that Caballero had an unfair trial due to police misconduct and abuse. The consulate hired counsel for the men and contracted a California investigator, Dr. Thomas Streed, who wrote a 30-plus page affadavit on their behalf about systematic misconduct and torture being carried out by Chicago police officer Reynaldo Guevara and others in the city's Area Five district.

"The consulate definitely helped, especially in Mario's case," said Ruth Pena of the Comite Exigimos Justicia, an organization of family members of the wrongfully convicted in Chicago's Latino neighborhoods. "I know for a fact that the Mexican government had a lot to do with Mario's commutation. They weren't even allowed to contact their consulates. There's no way anyone would get away with doing that to Americans in another country! What's good for the goose is good for the gander."

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