Foreigners on America's Death Rows

Investigates how foreigners charged with capital murder in the United States are deprived of rights by police and courts.

John Quigley (Author)

9781108428231, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 May 2018

300 pages
23.5 x 15.5 x 1.9 cm, 0.54 kg

'Foreigners on America's Death Rows will be of interest to a broad range of scholars - not limited to those working on American law or the use of capital punishment.' Robert Kissack, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 14

Capital cases involving foreigners as defendants are a serious source of contention between the United States and foreign governments. By treaty, foreigner defendants must be informed upon arrest that they may contact a consul of their home country for assistance, yet police and judges in the United States are lax in complying. Foreigners on America's Death Row investigates the arbitrary way United States police departments, courts, and the Department of State implement well-established rights of foreigners arrested in the US. Foreign governments have taken the United States into international courts, which have ruled that the US must enforce the treaty. The United States has ignored these rulings. As a result, foreigners continue to be executed after a legal process that their home governments justifiably find to be flawed. When one country ignores the treaty rights of another as well as the decisions of international courts, the established order of international relations is threatened.

Part I. Leveling the Playing Field: 1. Consular access as an antidote
2. Treaty rights for foreigners
3. Making treaty rights stick
4. United States on board
Part II. Death Cases Intrude: 5. American consuls in blindfolds
6. The first capital cases
7. American law: a legal labyrinth
8. Capital punishment and human rights
9. Why treaties matter
Part III. Into the Lion's Den: 10. Foreign countries go to court
11. First brush with the World Court
12. The United States against the Western hemisphere
13. Paraguay out, Germany in
14. Inter-American Court deals a blow
15. Two different planets
16 Federal courts reject consular claims
17 Uncle Sam in a corner
Part IV. Keeping the World at Bay: 18. World Court debacle
19. Lagrand sows confusion
20 Inter-American Commission in shock
21. World Court says judges must act
22. Exiting the World Court
Part V. Coping with the Fallout: 23. Supreme Court nixes remedies
24. Texas courts refuse President Bush
25. Supreme Court rejects World Court
26. A legislative fix proves elusive
27. Condemned Mexicans after the Avena case
Part VI. The United States Stands Alone: 28. Consular access as a human right
29. The obligation of countries of origin
30. Collateral damage
31. The need for new thinking
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Criminal law & procedure [LNF], Government powers [LNDH], Human rights & civil liberties law [LNDC], Citizenship & nationality law [LNDA], International law [LB], Ethical issues: capital punishment [JFMC]