Edgar Tamayo

TEXAS (USA): EDGAR TAMAYO EXECUTED DESPITE PLEAS FROM MEXICO

January 22, 2014: Edgar Tamayo, a Mexican national whose case gained international attention, was executed for the 1994 murder of a Houston policeman. He was put to death at 9:32 p.m., 3 hours after his scheduled execution and after the U.S. Supreme Court heard his final appeals.
The lethal dose of pentobarbital was administered after Tamayo's final court appeals ended in defeat.
Earlier Wednesday, lawyers from the Mexican consulate in Houston traveled to Huntsville to meet with the killer's family.
Tamayo was condemned for the January 1994 murder of Officer Guy Gaddis, who was shot as he prepared to take Tamayo and another man, both handcuffed in the squad car's back seat, to jail. Tamayo, trial testimony revealed, extricated a pistol hidden in his clothing and fired the fatal shots. The case garnered international attention because authorities failed to tell Tamayo at the time of his arrest that he could confer with the Mexican consulate. That right is provided by the United Nation's Vienna Convention on Consular Affairs. In 2004, an international court held that Tamayo's case should receive judicial review to determine if that violation affected the outcome of his trial. Tamayo 's lawyers argued that early notification of the consulate could have expedited the location of witnesses in Mexico, whose testimony could have allowed Tamayo to escape the death penalty.
Two other Mexican nationals with Vienna Convention violations have been executed in Texas.
Jose Medellin, condemned for the 1993 rape-murder of 2 Houston teenagers was executed in 2008; Humberto Garcia, convicted of killing a San Antonio teen, in 2011.
Tamayo becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas this year and the 509th overall since the state resumed executions on December 7, 1982. Tamayo becomes the 270th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since Rick Perry became governor in 2001.
Tamayo becomes the 4th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1363rd overall since the nation resumed executions on Janaury 17, 1977. (Sources: Houston Chronicle & Rick Halperin, 22/01/2014 )