Heliberto Chi, 29, from Honduras, is set for execution Thursday evening. He'd be the second foreign-born convicted murderer in Texas this week to die

Chi, 29, from Honduras, is set for execution Thursday evening. He'd be the second foreign-born convicted murderer in Texas this week to die and the second to seek a reprieve because of what lawyers argued were international treaty violations when he was arrested.Prosecutors said there was no doubt of his guilt.
"Not only was there eyewitness testimony, but that assistant manager got out a 911 call, and you could hear Chi in the background on the phone," said Mick Meyer, a former Tarrant County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Chi. "It was pretty solid evidence right there."Witnesses said that when Paliotta, 56, shoved the gun-wielding Chi and started running, he was fatally shot.In September, Chi was spared from execution when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stopped his scheduled punishment after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider whether lethal injection procedures were unconstitutionally cruel. When the Supreme Court earlier this year upheld the method as proper, his date was re-set for Thursday.Chi was in the United States illegally at the time of Paliotta's 2001 slaying. Lawyers for the Central American country said Chi was unable to contact anyone from his government, a violation of an international treaty, after he was arrested in California and extradited to Texas.It's an argument similar to the one raised earlier this week by Mexican-born Jose Medellin, who was executed late Tuesday for his part in a gruesome gang rape-slaying of two teenage Houston girls 15 years ago.
Unlike Medellin, Chi was not among some 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.President Bush asked states to review the cases, and legislation to implement the process was introduced recently in Congress, but the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year neither the president nor the international court could force Texas to wait. State attorneys had argued against a punishment delay, saying there was no certainty the legislation ever would pass.A divided high court agreed, and Medellin's punishment was carried out, making him the fifth inmate executed this year in the nation's busiest capital punishment state.
On Tuesday, a state judge in Tarrant County refused a request from Chi's lawyer, Wes Ball, to withdraw Chi's execution date until legislation was enacted to formalize procedures for reviews of capital cases involving foreign nationals.
"It's a significant violation of international law," said Houston attorney Terry O'Rourke, who has been involved in the case. "It's just not good."
Chi's attorney also appealed Wednesday to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, citing the consular violations as reason to stop the punishment. In addition, Ramon Valladares, the Honduran consular assistance director, said from Tegucigalpa that his government was lobbying U.S. authorities to block the execution.Chi would say little about the crime in an interview with the Associated Press shortly before his execution date last year.
"My situation is not about being innocent or guilty," he said, saying only that his trial was unfair. "My rights were violated. I'm a Christian. I know about the Lord. If it's the Lord's will, things happen. I have great peace in my mind and soul."
He said he slipped into the United States through Canada.Chi was arrested in Reseda, Calif., northwest of Los Angeles, about six weeks after the robbery and shootings when his 18-year-old pregnant girlfriend turned him in, accusing him of assault. The couple had been on the run for 43 days, crisscrossing the country from Iowa to Minnesota to West Virginia and eventually to California. At the time of the arrest, authorities said the couple had been planning to flee to Honduras.
His girlfriend's brother, Hugo Sierra, is serving a life prison term for being Chi's getaway driver at the clothing store.Four other 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.

Posted in: Huntsville