http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/22/us/mexico-texas-tamayo-execution/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
In Huntsville, Texas, on January 22, 2014 at 9:32 pm CT, Edgar Tamayo Arias became the 509th convicted felon to be executed in the state since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1979. Tamayo, a Mexican National, was convicted in 1994 for the murder of a police officer. The murder of Officer Guy Gaddis took place during a robbery.
After pursuing arrest, the officer was fatally shot by Tamayo. The Bush and Obama administration had tried to convince Texas to give Tamayo and other prisoners with similar situations new hearings in order to prevent Americans from having similar arrests overseas. To add, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stated that setting an execution date for Tamayo would be "extremely detrimental for the interests of the United States". The Mexican government had been arguing that the execution of Tamayo was violating international law.
After reading several stories of Edgar Tamayo Arias, my opinion of the execution changed. The Bush and Obama administration were right to try to convince the state of Texas to have new hearings. By executing citizens of other countries, we are putting our own citizens in danger of the same convictions. By granting the felons new hearings, they would have gotten a new opinion on the case.
Although a new hearing may not change the outcome of the situation, it would have given the Mexican government a clearer reasoning as to why the conviction happened. I think the biggest problem of the case was that the state of Texas and the country of Mexico were not communication enough about the actual situation. By postponing the actual execution date, the state of Texas could have presented more positive evidence to the Mexican governement. If the communication between the state and the country was more in depth, the situation could have been more understandable for the Mexican government.
