Leal vs. Texas

The opinion on Leal vs. Texas is actually the most recent decision posted on the Supreme Court website, and I found it very interesting considering the recent controversial execution of Troy Davis. This case is about Humberto Leal Garcia, a Mexican national who had lived in the United States since he was two years old and in 1994 had raped and murdered a 16 year old girl. The Texas court had sentenced him to death for this crime, but is appealing to the Supreme Court, claiming that his conviction was in violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The Supreme Court decision notes that Congress, along with Leal, wanted a delay of his execution because they were considering using his case and a previous case to form legislation on this topic, but the Supreme Court does not find future potential legislation to be a good reason for staying Leal's execution. Further, they feel that if legislation was going to be created it would have been done already, making the possibility of a ruling based on theoretical law rather foolish, in their view, and they do not find that in Leal's case the Vienna Convention was necessarily violated.

I can only hope, given the language of the Supreme Court decision concerning Leal's original crime, that his guilt is proven, confessed, and absolute because they state the circumstances of that case as facts. Further, this case is very interesting as Leal's appeal is based on international law, which is only applicable because he is not technically a citizen of the United States despite his long tenure here. In other circumstances, his case would have probably been decided and his sentence served without the Supreme Court's involvement. However, because he invoked the Vienna Convention and because Congress was supposedly considering legislation, Leal was able to bring in a certain degree of international politics. The Court's decision mentions that "The United States and Justice Breyer complain of the grave international consequences that will follow from Leal's execution," (Leal v. Texas, page 3) but the Court does not consider this or Congress' appeal valid reasons for reconsidering Leal's sentence.

Interestingly, in his dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer (joined in dissent by Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan) opines that the Court should grant Leal's stay of execution for many reasons, one of which is that his rights were in fact violated under the Vienna Conventions, as he was not told upon arrest that he was entitled to legal assistance from his country's consulate. This implies that the Court was skirting around the issue, as they seemed to suggest that it would be difficult or useless to prove that Leal's rights were violated. This issue in itself raises some important points because, as a Mexican national, Leal has different rights than those of a U.S. citizen. Neither opinion, majority or dissenting, discusses in detail the circumstances of Leal's arrest, and it might be worth it to consider whether or not the officials arresting Leal knew he was not a U.S. citizen and the implications of this. Also, in explaining his dissent, Justice Breyer maintains that in basing its decision on the existing legislation that does not provide for proper hearings for citizens of other countries, the Court is ignoring the fact that the U.S. government has yet to properly put in place this aspect of the Vienna Convention treaty. The Court, then, is ignoring please from half of its justices, Congress, and the President to allow the U.S. to do the right thing internationally, and instead (stubbornly) bases its opinion on the lack of proper legislation in Congress.

This case is fraught with interesting complexities of American and international politics. Leal was executed.