Texas' Planned Execution of Mexican Could Hurt Diplomacy, Kerry Warns The New York Times
go to original December 12, 2013

The scheduled execution next month of a Mexican national by the state of Texas threatens to damage relations between the United States and Mexico and complicate the ability of the United States to help Americans detained overseas, Secretary of State John F. Kerry has warned Texas officials.

The Mexican, Edgar Arias Tamayo, 46, was convicted of shooting and killing a Houston police officer who was taking him to jail after a robbery in 1994. Tamayo, who was in the nation illegally, was not notified of his right to contact the Mexican Consulate, in violation of an international treaty known as the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. That violation, an international tribunal’s order for his case to be reviewed and a judge’s recent decision to set Tamayo’s execution for Jan. 22, are now at the center of a controversy that has attracted the attention of the State Department and the Mexican government.

Despite Kerry’s involvement, there has been no sign that Texas officials plan to delay the execution. On Wednesday, Tamayo’s lawyers asked Gov. Rick Perry to grant him a 30-day reprieve and petitioned the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute his death sentence to life in prison. They are using Kerry’s letter, sent to Texas officials in September, to highlight the international issues at stake.

Read the rest at The Dallas Morning News

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