Despite pleas from the White House and United Nations, the Supreme Court turns down request to delay the Texas execution !!!

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday rejected a White House-backed appeal seeking to spare a Mexican citizen from execution Thursday evening in a death penalty case where Texas justice clashed with international treaty rights.

Justices voted 5-4, refusing to keep Humberto Leal from lethal injection, The decision came about an hour before Leal could be taken to the Texas death chamber for the 1994 rape-slaying of a 16-year-old girl.

The Obama administration and others asked the high court to delay Leal's execution so Congress could consider a law that would require court reviews in cases where condemned foreign nationals did not receive help from their consulates. They said the case could affect not only foreigners in the U.S. but Americans detained in other countries.

Prosecutors, however, said the legislation was likely to fail and that Leal's appeals were simply an attempt to evade justice for a gruesome murder.

Leal, a 38-year-old mechanic, was sentenced to lethal injection for the murder of Adria Sauceda, whose brutalized nude body was found hours after Leal left a San Antonio street party with her. The girl's head was bashed with a 30- to 40-pound chunk of asphalt.

Leal moved with his family from Monterrey, Mexico, to the U.S. as a toddler. His appeals contended police never told him he could seek legal assistance from the Mexican government under an international treaty, and that such assistance would have helped his defense.

The argument is not new. Texas, the nation's most active death penalty state, has executed other condemned foreign nationals who raised similar challenges, most recently in 2008.

Leal's appeals, however, focused on legislation introduced last month in the U.S. Senate by Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy. Leahy's measure would bring the U.S. into compliance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations provision regarding the arrests of foreign nationals, and ensure court reviews for condemned foreigners to determine if a lack of consular help made a significant difference in the outcome of their cases.

The Obama administration took the unusual step of intervening in a state murder case last week when Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. joined Leal's appeal, asking the high court to halt the execution and give Congress at least six months to consider Leahy's bill.

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