Bin Laden and Garcia Law Firm

Two recent executions are certainly cause to ponder the meaning of justice. Two men, Osama Bin Laden and Humberto Leal Garcia, recently met their just ends. Though they never met, they have become intertwined. It cuts to the heart of the whole issue of exactly what justice means.

We certainly know the history of Bin Laden, who was called the most evil man on earth. Most everyone cheered loudly when the Navy Seals hastened Osama’s meeting his Maker. Presidents Bush and Obama had sworn to get this man, and America was behind them. Despite no legal sentence having been passed down on Bin Laden, his death was a cause for national celebration.

Yet these same two presidents also attempted to use their political sway to prevent a justly convicted man from being executed in Texas. Their reasoning? The integrity of an international ruling on reviewing the convictions of all Mexican national death row inmates was at stake. There was no doubt as to his guilt; Garcia brutalized and murdered a sixteen year old girl-- a guilt he never denied. Appeal upon appeal was processed through our courts until nothing stood between Garcia and his execution date.

The protest from Bush and Obama was that Garcia should have received legal counseling from the Mexican consulate before his legal remedies could be considered to be fully exhausted. The problem here was that Garcia had in been in the U.S. since age two, and that neither Obama nor Bush was able to get this ruling passed through Congress was compounding the issue. Where is the concern for the victim and her family?

Neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor Texas Governor Rick Perry was standing for any of this nonsense and Garcia was executed on schedule. Here is the puzzler: Bin Laden is killed with no trial and his death is cheered while Garcia is justly convicted and his death is cause for insane pleas of clemency based on an illegitimate legal basis. This makes about as much sense as North Korea taking the chairmanship of the U.N. Nuclear Disarmament Panel conference-- the same North Korea that is a rogue nation thumbing its nose at the continuing international outcry about its lawless nuclear policy.

When Congress won’t pass this boondoggle legislation, why should U.S. courts even hear the illegitimate pleas of Obama and Bush? Yet this inane manner of thinking has precedent. The Kyoto Treaty, a “forward” thinking way to control global warming, was passed at an international conference and submitted for approval to the U.S. Senate by the Clinton Administration. Internationally, it would place the greatest burden (meaning we pay money) on the United States to get their carbon-controlling act together. In a nail biter vote of 95-0, the treaty was rejected. When will we learn?