THE LAGRAND CASE (WALTER BERNHARD LAGRAND WAS EXECUTED IN ARIZONA ON 3 MARCH 1999 & KARL HEINZ LAGRAND EXECUTED IN ARIZONA ON 24 FEBRUARY 1999)

            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

Walter Bernhard LaGrand

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

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

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:

1. http://www.executedtoday.com/2008/03/03/1999-walter-lagrand/

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.