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.
Cárdenas was sentenced to death for the 1997 kidnap, rape and murder of a 16-year-old cousin.
"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."
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.
Cárdenas was sentenced to death for the 1997 kidnap, rape and murder of a 16-year-old cousin.
"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."
The high school student was snatched from a bedroom she shared with a younger sister at her family’s public housing apartment in McAllen and her body was found later in a canal near a lake.
In a confession to police, Cardenas said he and a friend drove around with Laguna in his mother’s car, that he had sex with the girl and then fatally beat her as she fought him after he unbound her arms to let her go.
Laguna’s younger sister, Roxanna Laguna, told authorities she awoke in pre-dawn darkness Feb. 22, 1997, to see an intruder in their bedroom. She said Mayra’s mouth was taped and her hands were bound, and that the man went out a window with her.
A woman in the same Hidalgo County public housing complex called police after seeing a man walking with a barefoot girl who was wearing only a shirt and underwear.Cardenas initially was questioned about the teen’s disappearance because he was a close family member who had socialized with her.
“I didn’t plan on doing this, but I was high on cocaine,” he later told authorities.
He said after he hit the teen in the neck, she began coughing up blood and having breathing difficulties. After trying unsuccessfully to revive her, he said he tied her up “and rolled her down a canal bank.”
A friend in the car with Cardenas, Jose Antonio Lopez Castillo, now 45, was convicted of aggravated kidnapping and is serving a 25-year prison term.
Appeals
Greg Kuykendall, a lawyer for Cardenas filed a series of appeals in the hopes of gaining a last-minute stay of execution.
Cardenas' attorneys appealed a federal district judge’s dismissal of a civil rights lawsuit in which they claimed his due process and civil rights were violated because Texas officials wouldn’t release evidence so it could undergo new DNA testing.
Attorneys for the state called the lawsuit improper and said state courts already refused the DNA request because Cardenas could not show that more advanced tests would exonerate him.
The attorneys also appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, asking it to stop the execution and review the case, including the DNA testing arguments.
In a separate federal lawsuit also dismissed Wednesday hours before Cardenas was scheduled for execution, one of Cardenas’ lawyers argued she was denied a witness spot in the death chamber.
Attorney Maurie Levin also requested to have telephone access during the execution, saying she needed it to contact courts and the Texas governor before and during the punishment.
Attorney Maurie Levin also requested to have telephone access during the execution, saying she needed it to contact courts and the Texas governor before and during the punishment.
Mexico, where the death penalty was abolished in 2005, has asked the United States to stop the execution, which comes amid tensions over President Donald Trump's plan to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it.
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.
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.
Consular assistance
Mexican officials insist that Cardenas was not promptly given access to an attorney or the consular assistance that is allowed under the 1963 Vienna Convention.
"For the government of Mexico this is not an issue about culpability or innocence, but about respect for human rights and due process," said Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez, the Mexican consul general in the Texas capital Austin.
Since the start of the case Cardenas "was denied the right to due process of law, as he was not granted prompt access to consular assistance," Gonzalez wrote in an opinion piece in the Austin-American Statesman newspaper.
In a statement Monday, the Foreign Relations Department said Mexico “will maintain until the last minute its efforts to achieve a moratorium or suspension of this penalty” for Cardenas.
UN human rights experts have also urged the US government not to carry out the execution.
"If the scheduled execution of Mr. Cardenas goes ahead, "the US government will have implemented a death penalty without complying with international human rights standards," wrote Agnes Callamard and Elina Steinerte, two UN human rights experts.
"(Cardenas) did not have access to a lawyer for the first 11 days of his detention," they said. "Some of the statements he made during this period were relied on by prosecutors during the trial."
Neither was Cardenas informed of his right to seek consular assistance, the experts said.
In 2004 the UN's International Court of Justice found that the United States had "breached its obligations under international law by not notifying Mexican authorities about the arrest of 51 of its nationals," including Cardenas, "thus denying them the right to consular assistance from their government."
Washington at the time rejected the court's ruling.
Fifty-four Mexican nationals have been condemned to death in the United States and another 75 are being prosecuted for crimes that could result in a death sentence.
Another execution was carried out Wednesday in Florida, where Patrick Hannon was sentenced to die for a double homicide in 1991.
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.
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: Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press, Rick Halperin, November 8, 2017
Texas prepara la ejecución de un ciudadano mexicano por violar y matar a su prima adolescente
Los abogados y la diplomacia mexicana tratan de evitar la muerte por inyección letal, programada para esta noche
Si el último intento de sus abogados no lo impide, el ciudadano mexicano Rubén Ramírez Cárdenas será ejecutado esta noche en Texas, mediante una inyección letal, condenado por haber secuestrado, violado y matado a su prima de 16 años hace ya más de dos décadas. El tribunal de Apelaciones rechazó esta semana la petición de nuevas pruebas de ADN por el crimen, que Ramírez Cárdenas confesó en su día.
Los hechos se remontan al 22 de febrero de 1997. La estudiante, Mayra Laguna, fue llevada por la fuerza de la habitación que compartía con su hermana en Rio Grande Valley, en el sur de Texas, y su cuerpo apareció después en un canal cercano a un lago. Según Associated Press, Cárdenas confesó a la policía que él y un amigo se la habían llevado en coche, que él la agredió sexualmente y que, cuando le liberó los brazos para dejarla marchar, ella peleó. Fue entonces cuando, según su relato, la golpeó mortalmente.
Cuando le sacudió en el cuello, según el condenado, la joven empezó a toser sangre y tener dificultades para respirar. Trató de reanimarla sin éxito y la lanzó al canal. "No planeaba hacer esto, pero iba de cocaína", dijo a las autoridades Ramírez Cárdenas, que ahora tiene 47 años.
Los abogados del reo han intentado conseguir que se realice la mencionada nueva prueba de ADN alegando que la realizada en su día ya es obsoleta y que "persisten dudas sobre su culpabilidad y la honestidad de su condena", según AP. También sostienen que la confesión de Cárdenas se obtuvo tras horas de aislamiento en un duro interrogatorio.
La diplomacia mexicana está tratando en paralelo de ayudar al condenado con el argumento de que la detención aquel día no cumplió con los procedimientos legales correctos. Al haber nacido en México, un país sin pena de muerte, Ramírez Cárdenas tenía derecho a hablar y obtener ayuda del Consulado, algo que establece la Convención de Viena, y no se le concedió.
En una rueda de prensa en la capital mexicana el lunes, el viceministro de Exteriores, Carlos Sada, calificó la pena y el procedimiento de "acto ilegal". Sada dijo que no solo buscan frenar la ejecución, sino exonerarle con nuevas pruebas de ADN, para lo que quieren llevar el caso hasta el Supremo de EE UU si es necesario. Un total de 54 ciudadanos mexicanos afrontan la pena capital en suelo estadounidense.
Fuente: El País, 8 nov. 2017
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde