Mexican national's lawyers want execution halted

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-EXCITE

By MICHAEL GRACZYK

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - Attorneys considered last-minute attempts Wednesday to keep a Mexican national from Texas' death chamber after the state opposed legal efforts and spurned diplomatic pressure to delay his punishment for killing a Houston police officer two decades ago.

Edgar Arias Tamayo, 46, was set for lethal injection Wednesday for the January 1994 slaying of Guy Gaddis, 24.

Gaddis, who had been on the force for two years, was driving Tamayo and another man from a robbery scene when evidence showed the officer was shot three times in the head and neck with a pistol Tamayo had concealed in his pants. The car crashed, and Tamayo fled on foot but was captured a few blocks away, still in handcuffs, carrying the robbery victim's watch and wearing the victim's necklace.

Tamayo's attorneys and the Mexican government contend Tamayo's case was tainted because he wasn't advised under an international agreement that he could get legal help from his home nation following his arrest.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140122/DABFV7184.html

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This handout image provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Edgar Tamayo. Attorneys for the Mexican national on Texas death row for the slaying of a Houston police officer hoped a civil suit, challenging what they argued is an unfair and secretive clemency process in the nation’s most active capital punishment state would block the inmate’s scheduled execution this week. Tamayo, 46, was set for lethal injection Wednesday evening, Jan. 22, 2014, in Huntsville. (AP Photo/Texas Department of Criminal Justice)

[sharp_stick]

1. I wish him luck

but going on history this isn't looking too good. Texas has executed several Mexicans, one Canadian and probably a few from other nations without consular consultation.

[another_liberal]

2. If they go ahead and burn him . . .

Don't be a Texan arrested in Mexico anytime soon (just a word to the wise).

[840high]

3. Don't kill in Texas or Mexico.

[Dustlawyer]

4. Don't kill a cop in Texas, he doesn't stand a snowballs chance in Hell!

The Governer and Abbott, the AG alternate years giving speeches to TMPA, an 18,000 Texas lawmen organization and would NEVER do anything to make them mad.

[happyslug]

5. This is for Mexican Domestic Politics only....

If Mexico wanted to object to this execution, all Mexico has to do is close its border with the US. The protests of the US side of the Border would be immense (As would be the protests on the Mexican side, but if Mexico wanted to stop this execution, the Mexican Government would endure that protest with ease).

Has Mexico threaten to close its borders? No, Has Mexico proposed any thing else other then a verbal protest? No, Thus this is for Mexico Internal politics, to show that the Government will go through the motions of protecting its citizens, but nothing more.

[7962]

6. 20 years he's been sitting there. About 19 too long.

All these appeals should've been over YEARS ago. This is one of those "red handed" cases. Even in Texas, 20+ years? Ridiculous.