Thread: TX-Illegal immigrant from Honduras facing execution

TinybobIdaho,

Sorry to say it, but he's probably proud that he doesn't know how many children he has. Some cultures are like that. While I do not judge that in other countries, it also makes my blood boil that we do not sternly condemn such behavior on our soil. I'm a historian and it does not jibe with our traditional sense of responsibility within a republic.

Illegal immigrant seeks reprieve from Thursday execution
Honduran makes claims similar to the Medellin case, alleging international treaty violations during his arrest for an Arlington slaying
By MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press
Aug. 6, 2008, 6:24PM
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Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Heliberto Chi killed Armand Paliotta, his former boss at a men's clothing store.

Share Print Email Del.icio.usDiggTechnoratiYahoo! BuzzHUNTSVILLE — When Heliberto Chi showed up at a men's clothing store in suburban Dallas, he was a familiar face because he'd once worked there as a tailor.

And when he returned after closing time the same evening to say he'd left his wallet behind, his former boss, Armand Paliotta, let him in.

Then Chi pulled a gun.

By the time he fled with a money bag, Paliotta was shot dead and another employee had been shot and wounded. A third employee, an assistant manager, hid beneath a rack of clothes, called 911 and left the phone line open. Chi's voice was captured on tape as he hunted for the hiding assistant manager, urging her in Spanish to "Come to the front" of the store.

He jumped into a waiting car as police were en route to the Arlington store. The tape would be played for jurors at Chi's capital murder trial, where he was convicted and condemned.

Chi, 29, from Honduras, is set for execution Thursday evening. He'd be the second foreign-born convicted murderer in Texas this week to die and the second to seek a reprieve because of what lawyers argued were international treaty violations when he was arrested.

Prosecutors said there was no doubt of his guilt.

"Not only was there eyewitness testimony, but that assistant manager got out a 911 call, and you could hear Chi in the background on the phone," said Mick Meyer, a former Tarrant County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Chi. "It was pretty solid evidence right there."

Witnesses said that when Paliotta, 56, shoved the gun-wielding Chi and started running, he was fatally shot.

In September, Chi was spared from execution when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stopped his scheduled punishment after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider whether lethal injection procedures were unconstitutionally cruel. When the Supreme Court earlier this year upheld the method as proper, his date was re-set for Thursday.

Chi was in the United States illegally at the time of Paliotta's 2001 slaying. Lawyers for the Central American country said Chi was unable to contact anyone from his government, a violation of an international treaty, after he was arrested in California and extradited to Texas.

It's an argument similar to the one raised earlier this week by Mexican-born Jose Medellin, who was executed late Tuesday for his part in a gruesome gang rape-slaying of two teenage Houston girls 15 years ago.

Unlike Medellin, Chi was not among some 50 death row inmates around the country, all Mexican born, who the International Court of Justice said should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether the 1963 Vienna Convention treaty was violated during their arrests.

President Bush asked states to review the cases, and legislation to implement the process was introduced recently in Congress, but the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year neither the president nor the international court could force Texas to wait. State attorneys had argued against a punishment delay, saying there was no certainty the legislation ever would pass.

A divided high court agreed, and Medellin's punishment was carried out, making him the fifth inmate executed this year in the nation's busiest capital punishment state.

On Tuesday, a state judge in Tarrant County refused a request from Chi's lawyer, Wes Ball, to withdraw Chi's execution date until legislation was enacted to formalize procedures for reviews of capital cases involving foreign nationals.

"It's a significant violation of international law," said Houston attorney Terry O'Rourke, who has been involved in the case. "It's just not good."

Chi's attorney also appealed Wednesday to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, citing the consular violations as reason to stop the punishment. In addition, Ramon Valladares, the Honduran consular assistance director, said from Tegucigalpa that his government was lobbying U.S. authorities to block the execution.

Chi would say little about the crime in an interview with the Associated Press shortly before his execution date last year.

"My situation is not about being innocent or guilty," he said, saying only that his trial was unfair. "My rights were violated. I'm a Christian. I know about the Lord. If it's the Lord's will, things happen. I have great peace in my mind and soul."

He said he slipped into the United States through Canada.

Chi was arrested in Reseda, Calif., northwest of Los Angeles, about six weeks after the robbery and shootings when his 18-year-old pregnant girlfriend turned him in, accusing him of assault. The couple had been on the run for 43 days, crisscrossing the country from Iowa to Minnesota to West Virginia and eventually to California. At the time of the arrest, authorities said the couple had been planning to flee to Honduras.

His girlfriend's brother, Hugo Sierra, is serving a life prison term for being Chi's getaway driver at the clothing store.

Four other prisoners are set to die this month, including two more next week. They're among at least 15 Texas inmates with execution dates in the coming months.


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5928737.html

Hey Heliberto, when you get to hell give my regards to Jose, he just arrived last night.

Court clears way for another immigrant's execution
By MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press Writer © 2008 The Associated Press
Aug. 7, 2008, 5:11PM


HUNTSVILLE, Texas — An illegal immigrant from Honduras who claimed his treaty rights were violated when he was arrested for a robbery and murder lost his appeal Thursday at the U.S. Supreme Court, clearing the way for his execution.

In the second case of its kind this week in Texas, lawyers for condemned killer Heliberto Chi went to the nation's highest court claiming Chi should have been told he could get legal assistance from the Honduran consulate. He was arrested in California and extradited to Texas to face charges for killing his former boss at a men's clothing store during a robbery more than seven years ago.

Chi, 29, was scheduled for lethal injection for the fatal shooting of Armand Paliotta. Chi had once worked for Paliotta as a tailor at the store in Arlington, between Dallas and Fort Worth.

The Supreme Court, ruling less than three hours before Chi's scheduled execution time, rejected his appeal without dissent.

The arguments in his case, focusing on rights of foreigners under international treaty, were similar to those used unsuccessfully Tuesday by lawyers for condemned Texas prisoner Jose Medellin. In that case, the Supreme Court, with four of the nine justices dissenting, rejected his appeal, and the Mexican-born Medellin was executed for participating in the gang rape and murder of two teenage Houston girls 15 years ago.

Unlike Medellin, Chi was not among about 50 death row inmates around the country, all Mexican born, who the International Court of Justice said should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether the 1963 Vienna Convention treaty was violated during their arrests. Mexico had sued in the court on behalf of its citizens condemned in the U.S.

President Bush asked states to review those cases, and legislation to implement the process was introduced recently in Congress. But the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year neither the president nor the international court could force Texas to wait.

Chi's attorneys argued that unlike the Vienna Convention obligations with Mexico, the 1927 U.S. Bilateral Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights with Honduras was specifically between the U.S. and Honduras. They also argued it was self-executing, meaning it didn't require legislation to have effect. And they said the treaty also conferred individual rights and incorporated international law into enforceable domestic law.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, rejected a similar appeal late Wednesday.

Chi had visited the suburban Dallas store in 2001, then returned after closing and was let in by Paliotta after saying he had left his wallet behind. Once inside, he pulled out a gun and demanded a money bag.

Paliotta was shot and killed. Another employee was wounded trying to run away, and a third hid among clothing racks and called 911 for help. On a recording of the call played at his trial, Chi can be heard calling the hiding employee, in Spanish, to "come to the front" of the store.

Chi fled, jumped into a waiting car and sped off.

He was arrested in Reseda, Calif., northwest of Los Angeles, about six weeks later. His 18-year-old pregnant girlfriend had turned him for assaulting her and told authorities he was wanted for murder in Texas. The couple had been on the run, criss-crossing the country.

Terry O'Rourke, a lawyer on Chi's legal team who teaches international law at Houston's University of St. Thomas, said Chi's guilt wasn't the issue.

"Chi is a murderer; Medellin is a murderer," O'Rourke said. "But we don't kill all murderers. We don't execute all murderers. We do it according to the law.

"When your state violates international law to kill somebody, it has very negative consequences."

Chi was set to die in September, but his execution was stopped because the Supreme Court was looking into whether lethal injection procedures were unconstitutionally cruel. When the justices this year upheld the method as proper, his date was reset for Thursday.

The getaway driver at the murder scene, Hugo Sierra, who is the brother of Chi's girlfriend, is serving a life prison term.

Chi would say little about the crime in an interview with The Associated Press last year before his previously scheduled execution date.

"My situation is not about being innocent or guilty," he said. "My rights were violated."

"If it's the Lord's will" and he was executed, Chi said he had "great peace in my mind and soul."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/ ... 30912.html

Another one bites the dust

Chi, 29, was prounounced dead at 6:25 p.m. while the two sons of his victim witnessed the lethal injection in a tiny room adjacent to the death chamber in Huntsville’s Walls Prison Unit.