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TEXAS (USA): RAMIRO HERNANDEZ-LLANAS EXECUTED
April 9, 2014: Ramiro Hernandez-Llanas, 44, a Mexican national, was executed in Texas. He escaped prison in his native Mexico while serving a murder sentence and was in the U.S. illegally when he was arrested for the October 1997 slaying of 49-year-old Glen Lich.
Just 10 days earlier, Lich had given Hernandez-Llanas a job helping with renovations at his ranch near Kerrville, about 65 miles northwest of San Antonio, in exchange for living quarters. Hernandez-Llanas was the second Texas inmate to receive a lethal injection of a new supply of pentobarbital. Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials have refused to identify the source of the powerful sedative, contending secrecy is needed to protect the drug's provider from threats of violence from capital punishment opponents. The U.S. Supreme Court backed the state's position in a related case last week.
He was among more than 4 dozen Mexican citizens awaiting execution in the U.S. when the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled in 2004 that they weren't properly advised of their consular rights when arrested. A measure mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court to enforce that ruling has languished in Congress.
On Wednesday, the Mexican government's Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement condemning the execution. "This is the 4th case of a Mexican being executed in clear violation of the judgment of the International Court of Justice," the ministry said. "The Government of Mexico expresses its most vigorous protest at the failure to comply." But that issue never surfaced in Hernandez-Llanas' appeals, which focused primarily on claims that his mental impairment made him ineligible for the death penalty.
Hernandez-Llanas becomes the 6th inmate to be put to death this year in Texas, the 514th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982; and the 275th inmate to be put to death in Texas since Rick Perry became governor in 2001.
Hernandez-Llanas becomes the 16th inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1375th overall since the nation resumed executons on January 17, 1977. (Sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin, 09/04/2014)
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