I am conflicted on the execution of horrendous murderer Humberto Leal in Texas.

I am not conflicted because I think that executing him was the right thing to do.  I don’t.  But I am conflicted about almost everything else to do with this case.

I find it absolutely infuriating that the Mexican government tried to intervene in this case almost as frustrating as the US federal government in this case.  Humberto Leal was indeed a Mexican national but he lived in the US since he was 2 years old.  There are laws on the books designed to protect foreign nationals from being executed without due process and so they are allowed to contact their embassy.  The idea is that such foreign nationals might be at a disadvantage and should be afforded adequate representation.

Humberto Leal had adequate representation, and then some.  In fact, he had some of the best legal minds in the country with a specialty in capital crimes.  No one their right mind could argue that Humberto Leal did not have adequate representation, and that ‘right mind’ caveat naturally excludes the government.

The US government tried to prevent the execution on the grounds that Leal never contacted the embassy.  The real reason, of course, is that the execution is upsetting to Mexico.  Mexico, it seems, does not think that its citizens who are illegally in this country should be subject to the same law that all Texans are subject too.  Texans who are legally in Texas can be executed in Texas for brutalizing and killing a sixteen year old girl, but Mexicans illegally there cannot.  It is absurd on its face.

So in this regard, I am pleased that Texas told Mexico and the Federal gov’t to take a hike.  I am almost always in favor of telling the feds to take a hike and telling the intrusive Mexican gov’t “no comprendo. ” That said, I think the 17 years Leal spent in prison in Texas is ample proof that Texas was capable of keeping Texans safe from Mr. Leal without executing him.  But, I am sorta glad that federal and international politics did not play a part in enforcement of state law.  Or did it?

The problem is that Governor Rick Perry may very well be running for President and so there is some reasonable speculation that he allowed the execution to proceed because of its popular ‘states rights’ implications and it adding to his ‘tough on crime’ bona fides.  The idea that clemency in a capital crime case is sometimes rejected for political advantage or expediency is a core argument against the morality of execution.

I do not favor the death penalty as it is applied in these cases for many reasons, not the least of which is that politics almost always plays a role.  In this case clemency was requested because of politics and perhaps rejected because of politics.  Morality, it seems, had very little to do with it.