Prosecutors decry Mexico loophole...

Prosecutors decry Mexico loophole

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A methamphetamine dealer gunned down a deputy during a traffic stop in Southern California. A man in Arizona killed his ex-girlfriend's parents and brother and snatched his children. A man suffocated his baby daughter and left her body in a tool bag on an expressway overpass near Chicago.



Ordinarily, these would be death-penalty cases. But these men fled to Mexico, thereby escaping the possibility of execution.



The reason: Mexico refuses to return anyone to the United States unless the United States gives assurances it won't seek the death penalty — a 30-year-old policy that rankles some American prosecutors and enrages victims' families.



"We find it extremely disturbing that the Mexican government would dictate to us, in Arizona, how we would enforce our laws at the same time they are complaining about our immigration laws," said Barnett Lotstein, special assistant to the prosecutor in Maricopa County, Ariz., which includes Phoenix.



"Even in the most egregious cases, the Mexican authorities say, 'No way,' and that's not justice. That's an interference of Mexican authorities in our judicial process in Arizona."



It might be about to happen again: A Marine accused of murdering a pregnant comrade in North Carolina and burning her remains in his back yard is thought to have fled to Mexico. Prosecutors said they have not decided whether to seek the death penalty. But if the Marine is captured in Mexico, capital punishment will be off the table.



Fugitives trying to escape the long arm of the law have been making runs for the border ever since frontier days, a practice romanticized in countless Hollywood Westerns.



Mexico routinely returns fugitives to the United States to face justice. But under a 1978 treaty with the United States, Mexico, which has no death penalty, will not extradite anyone facing possible execution. To get their hands on a fugitive, U.S. prosecutors must agree to seek no more than life in prison.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080118/NAT
ION/204754316

http://community.myfoxla.com/blogs/SEALTHEBORDER/2008/01/19/Prosecutors_decry_Mexico_loophole