[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 8




TEXAS----execution


Texas executes Mexican national despite international ire


Texas executed a Mexican national late Wednesday night despite a flurry of 
last-minute appeals and objections from his native country and United Nations 
human rights experts.

Death row inmate Ruben Cárdenas had several appeals pending before the U.S. 
Supreme Court when the scheduled time of his execution — 6 p.m. — rolled 
around. The high court denied all appeals almost four hours later, setting his 
execution into process.

In his final words, Cárdenas thanked his family, friends, attorneys and the 
Mexican government for their help.

“I will not and cannot apologize for someone else’s crime, but, I will be back 
for justice! You can count on that!” he said.

Cárdenas, 47, was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital and pronounced 
dead at 10:26 p.m.

He was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1997 Edinburg murder of his 
16-year-old cousin, Mayra Laguna. After hours of interrogation, Cárdenas 
confessed that he snuck into his cousin’s room through an open window early on 
a February morning and then kidnapped, raped and killed her before leaving her 
body near a canal, according to court records.

"After 21 years of waiting, justice was finally served," said Laguna's sister, 
Roxana Jones, in a statement after the execution. "Words can't begin describe 
the relief it feels to know that there is true peace after so much pain and 
sorrow….Mayra can be remembered as loving, caring, funny and dimples when she 
smiled. She will continue to watch over family and friends."

There was an international push to stop his execution because Cárdenas, was 
never given the chance to speak to his country’s consulate after his arrest 
more than 20 years ago, a violation of an international treaty. Cárdenas also 
was not provided a lawyer until 11 days after his arrest, and his 
representatives claimed evidence against him was faulty and his confession was 
coerced.

“If the scheduled execution of Mr. Cárdenas goes ahead, the US Government will 
have implemented a death penalty without complying with international human 
rights standards,” said Agnes Callamard and Elina Steinerte, independent 
experts with the U.N.’s Human Rights system, in a news release Monday.

Under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, all arrestees from a 
foreign country must be told they can notify their consulate and receive 
regular consultation from them during their detention. In 2004, the U.N.’s 
International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that the U.S. violated this treaty 
with more than 50 Mexican nationals on death row, including Cárdenas. A ruling 
ordered that all the cases should be reconsidered before execution.

But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that even though the treaty created 
obligations for the federal government, it didn’t force anything on the states, 
according to a federal appellate court’s ruling denying Cárdenas’ appeal on the 
consulate violation.

“ICJ decisions do not become domestic law absent a Congressional enactment,” 
the order said.

The Mexican government still says the violation is “illegal,” according to a 
Reuters report.

On Monday, the country’s deputy foreign minister for North America, Carlos 
Sada, told reporters that Texas prosecutors didn’t follow due process and that 
his country is looking to stay the execution. Hours before the execution was 
set to begin, the Mexican Senate urged President Enrique Peña Nieto to call on 
Texas officials to stop the execution. Mexico does not have the death penalty.

In recent appeals filed in state courts, Cárdenas' legal team said bad 
practices in eyewitness identifications, DNA evidence and confessions led to 
Cárdenas’ conviction.

“To permit Mr. Cardenas’s conviction to stand without further examination and 
testing would undermine Texas’s commitment to addressing the epidemic of 
wrongful convictions, and would facilitate the execution of a potentially 
innocent man,” attorney Maurie Levin wrote in an appeal filed last week.

Evidence used against Cárdenas at trial included an eyewitness who could not 
identify him in a lineup but could at his trial — a practice that was 
prohibited by the Texas Legislature this year in an effort to prevent wrongful 
convictions. His legal team also argued that DNA testing done nearly 20 years 
ago is now obsolete.

The crux of Cárdenas’ conviction, however, was based on his confessions. 
Cárdenas’ account changed slightly during days of interrogation — the first 11 
of which he did not have an attorney. He asked for a lawyer at his first 
appearance hearing two days after his arrest, according to the filing.

Levin argued that Cárdenas’ confessions were “false and extremely unreliable,” 
citing inconsistencies between his confessions and the facts of the crime. Some 
of the inconsistencies she described were the lack of forensic evidence of 
sexual activity even though he said he raped his cousin and his statement that 
he killed her in the back of the car despite only two small drops of blood 
being found there.

The state countered the false confession argument with a simple statement: 
Cárdenas led police to the body when they were searching miles away.

“An independently corroborated confession, one that contains information 
unknown to the police and known only to someone involved, is extraordinarily 
strong evidence of guilt,” wrote Michael Morris, Hidalgo County’s assistant 
criminal district attorney.

On Monday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Cárdenas’ last appeals, 
where he pleaded for a stay of execution and additional DNA testing. The U.S. 
Supreme Court issued its final denial of that appeal Wednesday night.

Cardenas becomes the 7th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas 
and the 545th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 
1982.  Cardenas becomes the 27th condemned inmate to be executed since Greg 
Abbott became governor of the state.

Cardenas becomes the 23rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the 
USA and the 1,465th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 
1977.

(sources: Texas Tribune & Rick Halperin)

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Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----27

Executions in Texas:  Dec. 7, 1982----present-----544

Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #




28---------Dec. 14-----------------Juan Castillo----------546

29---------Jan. 18-----------------Anthony Shore----------547

30---------Jan. 30-----------------William Rayford--------548

31----------Feb. 1-----------------John Battaglia---------549

32----------Feb. 22----------------Thomas Whitaker--------550

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)