Protestors in Mexico, including one man who burned an American flag, weren’t able to persuade Texas to spare the life of cop-killer Edgar Tamayo. He was convicted of shooting Houston policeman Guy Gaddis in the back of the head with a gun he had snuck into Gaddis’ patrol car after being arrested in 1994.
Here’s some background on the case via BBC News:
[Tamayo] was among the four dozen Mexican nationals awaiting execution in the U.S. in 2004 when the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled they had not been advised properly of their consular rights.
Former President George W. Bush ordered Texas and other states to review the cases, but the US Supreme Court ruled in favour of the state in 2008, saying the president could not effectively enforce The Hague’s ruling, leaving it to Congress to pass legislation.
Yes, that’s right. When Texas argued its sovereignty before the U.S. Supreme Court to execute the nationals in question, President George W. Bush sided with the World Court against Texas.
Not one of W’s finest moments.
It was Ted Cruz (then Texas’ Solicitor General) who argued the case for Texas and won, paving the way for Tamayo’s execution yesterday.
The flag-burning incident occurred a week ago in Mexico in protest of Tamayo’s scheduled execution:
Some opponents of Tamayo’s execution, such as the American Bar Association, cited Tamayo’s low IQ as an extenuating factor:
Testing has determined that Tamayo has an IQ of approximately 67 and major limitations in adaptive functioning.
(We keep hearing that IQ is a “fundamentally flawed” concept. Apparently, it is a perfectly valid concept if the person citing it happens to be liberal.)
Many photos related to Tamayo’s execution were posted to Twitter yesterday:
Finally, after twenty years, justice has been served.
https://twitter.com/bwoodardkhou/status/426221915229786113
Rest in Peace, Guy Gaddis.
