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| Oklahoma Court Orders New Sentence for Mexican Inmate |
| By Reuters |
| Published: 05/13/2002 |
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The controversial death sentence of a Mexican inmate whose government fought to keep him from being executed was thrown out last week by an Oklahoma appeals court, which ordered that the mentally impaired man get a new sentence. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals did not explicitly order that Gerardo Valdez be given jail time instead of death by lethal injection, but said it 'cannot have confidence' that the jury would have given him the death sentence for a 1989 murder had it known of his brain damage. It sent the case back to a district court in Chickasha, Oklahoma, for resentencing, at a still undetermined date. Mexican President Vicente Fox personally intervened on Valdez' behalf, seeking clemency from Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating on grounds that Valdez' rights were violated at the time of his arrest because he was not told he could contact the Mexican consulate. Mexico has no death penalty and opposes its use in the United States. Oklahoma justice officials have acknowledged that Valdez was not told of his rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Rights, which protects people arrested in foreign countries. Mexican authorities also provided information about a brain injury Valdez, 42, suffered as a youth that caused him to be insane at the time of the crime. He was condemned for killing Juan Barron after Barron allegedly made sexual advances. Prosecutors said Valdez tried to convince Barron that Christianity condemned homosexuality, then shot him twice in the head, cut his throat and hid the body in a barbecue pit. |
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