On this date, 3 March 1999, Walter Bernhard LaGrand was executed by the gas chamber in Arizona. Six days earlier, his brother, Karl Heinz LaGrand was executed by lethal injection in that State. They were both charged for murdering a man in an armed robbery. I will post information from Wikipedia and some other internet sources before giving my thoughts.
Karl
Heinz LaGrand
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Walter
Bernhard LaGrand
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LaGrand case
The LaGrand case was a legal action heard before
the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which concerned the Vienna Convention
on Consular Relations. In the case the ICJ found that its own temporary court
orders were legally binding and that the rights contained in the convention
could not be denied by the application of domestic legal procedures.
Background
On
January 7, 1982, brothers Karl and Walter Bernhard LaGrand bungled an armed
bank robbery in Marana, Arizona, United States, killing a man and severely
injuring a woman in the process. They were subsequently charged and convicted
of murder and sentenced to death. The LaGrands were German nationals, having
been born in Germany. While they had both lived in the United States since they
were four and five, respectively, neither had acquired U.S. citizenship. As
foreigners the LaGrands should have been informed of their right to consular assistance,
under the Vienna Convention, from their state of nationality, Germany. However
the Arizona authorities failed to do this even after they became aware that the
LaGrands were German nationals. The LaGrand brothers later contacted the German
consulate of their own accord, having learned of their right to consular
assistance. They appealed their sentences and convictions on the grounds that
they were not informed of their right to consular assistance, and that with
consular assistance they might have been able to mount a better defense. The
federal courts rejected their argument on grounds of procedural default, which
provides that issues cannot be raised in federal court appeals unless they have
first been raised in state courts.
Diplomatic efforts, including pleas by German
ambassador Jürgen Chrobog and German Member of Parliament Claudia Roth, and the
recommendation of Arizona's clemency board, failed to sway Arizona Governor
Jane Dee Hull, who insisted that the executions be carried out. Karl LaGrand
was subsequently executed by the state of Arizona on February 24, 1999, by
lethal injection. Walter LaGrand was then executed March 3, 1999, by lethal gas.
The case
Germany then initiated legal action in the
International Court of Justice against the United States regarding Walter LaGrand.
Hours before Walter LaGrand was due to be executed, Germany applied for the
Court to grant a provisional court order, requiring the United States to delay
the execution of Walter LaGrand, which the court granted.
Germany then initiated action in the U.S. Supreme
Court for enforcement of the provisional order. In its judgment, the U.S.
Supreme Court held that it lacked jurisdiction with respect to Germany's
complaint against Arizona due to the eleventh amendment of the U.S.
constitution, which prohibits federal courts from hearing lawsuits of foreign
states against a U.S. state. With respect to Germany's case against the United
States, it held that the doctrine of procedural default was not incompatible
with the Vienna Convention, and that even if procedural default did conflict
with the Vienna Convention it had been overruled by later federal law—the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which explicitly
legislated the doctrine of procedural default. (Subsequent federal legislation
overrides prior self-executing treaty provisions, Whitney v. Robertson,
124 U.S. 190 (1888)).
The U.S. Solicitor General sent a letter to the
Supreme Court, as part of these proceedings, arguing that provisional measures
of the International Court of Justice are not legally binding. The United
States Department of State also conveyed the ICJ's provisional measure to the
Governor of Arizona without comment. The Arizona clemency board recommended a
stay to the governor, on the basis of the pending ICJ case; but the governor of
Arizona ignored the recommendation and Walter LaGrand was executed on March 3,
1999. As of 2010 this is the last use of lethal gas in the U.S., although five
states still permit its use in varying circumstances.
Germany then modified its complaint in the case
before the ICJ, alleging furthermore that the U.S. violated international law
by failing to implement the provisional measures. In opposition to the German
submissions, the United States argued that the Vienna Convention did not grant
rights to individuals, only to states; that the convention was meant to be
exercised subject to the laws of each state party, which in the case of the
United States meant subject to the doctrine of procedural default; and that
Germany was seeking to turn the ICJ into an international court of criminal
appeal.
ICJ decision
On June 27, 2001, the ICJ, rejecting all of the
United States' arguments, ruled in favor of Germany. The ICJ held that the
Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 24 April 1963 (Vienna Convention)
granted rights to individuals on the basis of its plain meaning, and that
domestic laws could not limit the rights of the accused under the convention, but
only specify the means by which those rights were to be exercised. The ICJ also
found that its own provisional measures were legally binding. The nature of
provisional measures has been a subject of great dispute in international law;
the English text of the Statute of the International Court of Justice implies
they are not binding, while the French text implies that they are. Faced with a
contradiction between two equally authentic texts of the statute, the court
considered which interpretation better served the objects and purposes of the
statute, and hence found that they are binding. This was the first time in the
court's history it had ruled as such.
The court also found that the United States
violated the Vienna Convention through its application of procedural default.
The court was at pains to point out that it was not passing judgment on the
doctrine itself, but only its application to cases involving the Vienna
Convention.
Karl
Heinz LaGrand
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Karl LaGrand
The case of LaGrand, a German national, attracted
widespread attention in Europe, and his attorneys had selected death by gas as
a grounds for reversal on appeal and to illustrate the horrors of the death
penalty. But an hour before the execution, he chose lethal execution. Lagrand,
35, was put to death in 1999 for stabbing to death a Marana bank manager during
a botched robbery attempt in 1982.
Walter
Bernhard LaGrand
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Walter Burnhart LaGrand
LaGrand, 37, was executed in 1999 despite protests
from the German government and a flurry of international controversy over the
death penalty. It was the state’s first use of the gas chamber since 1992. A
week earlier, his brother was executed for the same crime, killing a bank
manager during a botched robbery attempt. Witnesses said his death by gas
chamber was difficult to watch because he gurgled and cough violently.
LINKS:
MY THOUGHTS:
These
two criminal duos broke the law in the United States and they were deservedly
punished. I do not think that the ICJ had the right to interfere with the
criminal justice of the sovereign state.
The
European Union should not just learn to stop interfering with the death penalty
law with other countries, they need to take care of their own violent criminals
in their own countries before lecturing others.
I
personally believe that the gas chamber is a better option than the lethal
injection as the murderer has to feel the pain of death. He needs to suffer a
bit more.
I do not agree with you.
ReplyDeleteSimply saying that "the EU/ICJ didn't have the right to interfere with the criminal system in a sovereign country", as you stated, is, by all means, ignorant.
This can only be the opinion of one of those typical conservative Americans who think the whole world is turning around the USA, hence being the noblest, most democratic and righteous and important country of all.
Yes, the US has its legislation, but so do other countries and so does the World Court, and those laws are not conclusively inferior to those of the US. Also the US has got to accept that.
What happens in the States, stays in the States, that seems to be the mantra. And for sure, US authorities can handle their own citizens that way as you described upon being incarcerated. In fact, citizens of THEIR OWN, not foreigners, just as the LaGrands were.
And again, the central problem in that case was not that the authorities in Arizona would not have been eligible or entitled to arrest and to try and sentence the LaGrand brothers.
The basic issue also the World Court and German government later argued and why US authorities were heavily attacked and criticized for their conduct was the fact that the LaGrand brothers were not informed about their rights to immediate consular assistance when having been arrested, in fact, they subsequently learned about it no less than ten years after their incarceration.
Facing that the US have executed both brothers despite experiencing heavy criticism for their unlawful proceeding in this case and other doubts which I don't want to take time to specify here further, it is a scandal and clear breach of international law and proper diplomatic conduct. In my eyes (and not only in mine), that can't be excused by saying "Oh, we have our laws in our country, and you've got yours ..." or "Mind your own business!" because that case clearly exceeds an internal or inner-state matter, it is a matter of international and diplomatic relevance.
But, what you've written, it sounds quite typical in my opinion for that average American, as I've stated in the beginning of my comment.
Have a good day, though