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Illegal immigrant executed for murder of Arlington store manager

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  • Illegal immigrant executed for murder of Arlington store manager

    WTF is with you people, and the by now infamous World Court? Where is PETA? How come this guy didn't get press? Why aren't anyone's panties in a wad for him?
    I know, I know. Ghoul. Don't even say it.
    Still, somehow, it seems a relevant question. I wasn't even going to say anything, but just wait and see.
    I couldn't stand the suspense though. I made it a whole 5 minutes after the fact.

    07:16 PM CDT on Thursday, August 7, 2008

    Associated Press


    HUNTSVILLE, Texas – An illegal immigrant from Honduras who claimed his treaty rights were violated when he was arrested for a robbery-murder in Arlington was executed Thursday evening.

    "God forgive them, receive my spirit," Heliberto Chi said in English. In Spanish, he told a friend watching through a window that he loved him and appreciated his hard work. He appeared to be whispering a prayer in Spanish with a tear at the corner of his right eye as the lethal drugs began to take effect.

    One of Chi's cousins, who was among the witnesses, sobbed uncontrollably. Two sons of his victims watched through another window and Chi glanced at them briefly but didn't appear to acknowledge them.

    Chi was pronounced dead nine minutes later at 6:25 p.m. CDT.

    Lawyers for Chi had claimed in appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court that he should have been told he could get legal assistance from the Honduran consulate when he was arrested in California and extradited to Texas to face charges for killing his former boss, Armand Paliotta, at an Arlington men's clothing store during a robbery 7 1/2 years ago. Chi had once worked for Paliotta as a tailor at the store.

    The Supreme Court, ruling about 2 1/2 hours before his 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 gruesome gang rape and murders 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 that 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 and was self-executing, meaning it didn't require legislation to have effect. They said the treaty also conferred individual rights and incorporated international law into enforceable domestic law.

    "There can be little doubt that this issue – the proper construction of treaty provisions – is sufficiently meritorious to warrant review," Chi's lawyers said in their Supreme Court request for a reprieve.

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

    Chi had visited the Arlington store in 2001, then returned after closing and was let in by Paliotta after saying he'd 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 urging the hiding employee, in Spanish, to "Come to the front" of the store.

    With police on the way, he fled a few minutes later, 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 in for assaulting her and told authorities he was wanted for murder in Texas. The couple had been on the run, crisscrossing 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 last September, but his execution was stopped because the Supreme Court was looking into whether lethal injection procedures were unconstitutionally cruel. When the justices earlier 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 shortly before his then-scheduled execution last year.

    "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."

    Four other Texas 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.
    Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.
    "Hating America is something best left to Mobius. He is an expert Yank hater.
    He also hates Texans and Australians, he does diversify." ~ Braindead

  • #2
    No offense Sloww, but how the heck should other than the texan justice department be aware of whom you guys have arrested ?
    With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

    Steven Weinberg

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    • #3
      One less scumbag to worry about and another for Texas.
      We need seperate human-only games for MP/PBEM that dont include the over-simplifications required to have a good AI
      If any man be thirsty, let him come unto me and drink. Vampire 7:37
      Just one old soldiers opinion. E Tenebris Lux. Pax quaeritur bello.

      Comment


      • #4
        So thats why my windows haven't been cleaned this week.

        Comment


        • #5
          Well, in short, this is the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

          1) If you did do this murder than you deserved to die.

          2) If you didnt then its a shame, too late now.

          If you didnt understand our laws/were not aware as a foreigner you had certain priveleges,couldnt afford proper representation....see #2

          Oh and this turns my stomach
          "My situation is not about being innocent or guilty," he said. "My rights were violated."


          What about those he attacked?

          What of their rights?

          Gramps
          Hi, I'm RAH and I'm a Benaholic.-rah

          Comment


          • #6
            Yep. That's why I bolded it. Talk about gall.
            Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.
            "Hating America is something best left to Mobius. He is an expert Yank hater.
            He also hates Texans and Australians, he does diversify." ~ Braindead

            Comment


            • #7
              Just to be clear, to me, this has very little to do with his nationality per se

              I have twice been to church building misssions in Honduras.

              To me, I have to as an American taxpayer, work off my butt to support illegal immigrants and on top of that, an illegal kills someone and then they claim "rights"




              To those not born here, dont look for "special treatment"

              Oh and I feel the same way for folks born here in the US

              Murder and it should be returned unto you likewise
              Hi, I'm RAH and I'm a Benaholic.-rah

              Comment


              • #8
                As long as you guys are Ok with US servicemen having their hands chopped off if they steal something in the Middle East...
                What?

                Comment


                • #9
                  They know the law. Theft is illegal here; only the punishment is different. The idea has its merits.
                  Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.
                  "Hating America is something best left to Mobius. He is an expert Yank hater.
                  He also hates Texans and Australians, he does diversify." ~ Braindead

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    As long as you guys are Ok with US servicemen having their hands chopped off if they steal something in the Middle East...
                    Only if some tinpot Middle Eastern dictator thinks they are stronger than the US military. **** them. US military personnel are subject to the UCMJ, and not Islamic Sharia law. If Saudi Arabia has a problem with that, they can **** themselves.

                    As for here, the World Court can continue to **** themselves. You kill someone in Texas, we'll kill you right back. If the international community doesn't like it, well, it's unfortunate for them that we are the United States and they, well, aren't.
                    Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/DaveDaDouche
                    Read my seldom updated blog where I talk to myself: http://davedadouche.blogspot.com/

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Message icon Originally posted by SlowwHand


                      ?
                      Here you go:

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by David Floyd


                        If the international community doesn't like it, well, it's unfortunate for them that we are the United States and they, well, aren't.
                        As I hold David Floyd in high esteem, I can only give a Big thumbs up on his quoted statement

                        And for the record, I feel same way overseas, as when attached to another country, if you break the law when off duty, off base, then you should be punished.

                        To quote a great detective "If ya cant do the time, then dont do the crime"
                        Attached Files
                        Hi, I'm RAH and I'm a Benaholic.-rah

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                        • #13
                          Lawyers for Chi had claimed in appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court that he should have been told he could get legal assistance from the Honduran consulate


                          Yes, he should have. His rights WERE violated!

                          There is a reason we have rights, not so they can be tossed away when we decide they are inconvenient.
                          “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
                          - John 13:34-35 (NRSV)

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Richelieu
                            As long as you guys are Ok with US servicemen having their hands chopped off if they steal something in the Middle East...
                            Don't forget, without being told they can go to the US consolate. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
                            “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
                            - John 13:34-35 (NRSV)

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              I am offering a simple question that may not have a simple answer:

                              Is Ignorance an excuse in a trial?

                              I am asking because having been involved in the criminal justice system in the past on various sides, one cannot claim that they did not know they had avenues to go down.

                              Or do they?

                              If say evidence was obtained in an illegal search and seizure (i.e. "weaving motor vehicle,smelled marijuana odor/alcohol,inoperative license plate light, failure to signal lane change) type bogus stop, then yes that would implicate a rights violation.

                              But a foreigner in a foreign land, why should they be allowed to have "special rights" such as legal counsel from their home govt., I mean this isnt I was in Arkansas swabbing floor at night, picking up trash during daytime and was accused of being somewhere I have never been.


                              Maybe I am just tired of foreigners coming to my country and me having to support them by giving them unacceptable help.

                              I am not against peoples rights, as long as they are not attempting to circumvent our laws, which, this seems to be the very case.

                              Imran, you are a well educated man and I am a country boy, I am ceretainly not standing in a corner pouting about these comments, its just when is enough, enough?

                              Looking forward to additional communicative discussion
                              Hi, I'm RAH and I'm a Benaholic.-rah

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