Opinion ID: 2600675
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Effect of defendant's seizure on imposition of death penalty

Text: Defendant contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to preclude imposition of the death penalty following his assertedly illegal seizure in Mexico. Defendant urges that application of the death penalty would violate his rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution to due process of law and his Eighth Amendment right to a fair trial as applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. [5] As explained above, in the trial court defendant moved to preclude the death penalty on grounds similar to those raised on appeal in challenging California's jurisdiction over himnamely, that asserted misrepresentation by United States law enforcement agents to Mexican officials that defendant was a United States citizen violated the Treaty and international law. Similar to the conclusion we reach here, the trial court's holding was that defendant lacked standing to assert such a violation, and that assuming defendant had standing, his seizure by United States officers did not violate the explicit or implicit terms of the Treaty and did not violate international law. For the same reasons, the present claim must be rejected.