U.S. Supreme Court Denies Mexican National Killer's Request for Execution Stay

Fox News reports:

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a Mexican man's request for an execution stay in Texas, calling his argument meritless.

Humberto Leal, 38, a Mexican national and convicted murder, has since been moved to a holding cell a few steps away from the Texas death chamber, an indicator that he is hours away from the lethal injection cocktail.

He is set to die in Huntsville for the 1994 brutal rape and murder of 16-year-old Adria Sauceda, of San Antonio. President Obama, the State Department and Mexican authorities have all asked Texas for a last-minute reprieve of Leal, citing the U.N.-enforced 1963 Vienna Treaty, which requires foreign nationals who are arrested in foreign countries the right to access their consulates.

The White House is pleading for a stay in the case that has pitted Texas justice against international treaty rights.

The U.S. Supreme Court said, “We have no authority to stay an execution in light of an “appeal of the President,” presenting free-ranging assertions of foreign policy consequences, when those assertions come unaccompanied by a persuasive legal claim.”

An hour before the 6 p.m. scheduled execution, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has yet to make a decision regarding whether to stay the execution, a spokeswoman said.

Leal, who moved with his family from Mexico to the U.S. as a toddler, contends police never told him he could seek legal assistance from the Mexican government under the treaty -- and that such assistance would have helped his defense.

Sauceda, according to court documents, was found naked when authorities discovered her body in May 1994.

"There was a 30- to 40-pound asphalt rock roughly twice the size of the victim's skull lying partially on the victim's left arm," court documents read. "Blood was underneath this rock. A smaller rock with blood on it was located near the victim's right thigh. There was a gaping hole from the corner of the victim's right eye extending to the center of her head from which blood was oozing. The victim's head was splattered with blood."

A "bloody and broken" stick roughly 15 inches long with a screw at the end of it was also protruding from the girl's vagina, according to the documents...

"Texas is not bound by a foreign court's ruling,” Katherine Cesinger, press secretary for Gov. Perry's office, said in a statement. "The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the treaty was not binding on the states and that the president does not have the authority to order states to review cases of the then 51 foreign nationals on death row in the U.S."

For 16 years, Leal has exercised his right to file appeals and motions so extensively, one judge in federal district court called his case "one of the most procedurally convoluted and complex habeas corpus proceedings" he ever reviewed.

As it stands, the death warrant could be served any time after 6 p.m. Thursday. Leal will be allowed to address the media, meet family and friends and eat his last meal: fried chicken, pico de Gallo and guisada tacos.

Tweet