UPDATE: Yes. He was executed just before 10 p.m.:
“I’m sorry my actions caused you pain,” he said to the witnesses present. “I hope this brings you the closure that you seek. Never harbor hate.”
*****
Reuters says they’re about to:
Texas is set to defy the World Court and anger Mexico on Tuesday by executing a Mexican national who was not informed of his right to consular services after his arrest.
Texas, by far America’s most active death penalty state, condemned Jose Medellin for the 1993 rape and murder of 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena in Houston. Another girl was killed in the vicious gang-related assault but Medellin was convicted only of Pena’s murder.
The World Court last month ordered the U.S. government to “take all measures necessary” to halt the upcoming execution of five Mexicans until it makes a final judgment in a dispute over suspects’ rights.
So what if they do?
“The impact of ignoring this endangers Americans traveling abroad,” said Victoria Palacios, a professor at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law in Dallas. “If the world sees us ignoring the rights of foreign nationals arrested here, there is very little reason for them to recognize the rights of U.S. citizens.”
Via Facing South:
The case has drawn international legal attention and underscores the deep gulf between U.S. views of the death penalty and those elsewhere. Texas has executed far more people than any other state in the United States—more than 400 prisoners since the Supreme Court lifted a ban on the practice in 1976.
Jeralyn at TalkLeft has much more.