Crime-Plagued Mexicans Shift Death Penalty Stance

There is little that the Mexican government wouldn’t do for Mario Flores.

Since he was sentenced to death in 1985 by an Illinois court, the Mexican migrant has been an obsession of Mexican diplomats. They call him weekly. They met with the Illinois governor. They even organized a show of the convicted murderer’s paintings in a bid to demonstrate his good character.

The campaign for Flores reflects the government’s forceful efforts to defend the 40 Mexicans on death row in the United States. As Heriberto Galindo, Mexico’s consul general in Chicago, notes: “It has been a Mexican tradition to oppose the death penalty.”

Now, that tradition may be changing. In a striking turnabout, a society that has fiercely protested U.S. executions is debating whether to reinstate the death penalty itself.

As Mexico’s crime rate has soared in recent years, calls for capital punishment have gradually increased. But they multiplied with the arrest last week of confessed kidnapper Daniel Arizmendi, who has become a symbol of violent crime through his practice of cutting off his victims’ ears.

*

As callers flooded radio shows with demands for Arizmendi’s execution, the government indicated for the first time in decades that it might consider the idea. Interior Minister Francisco Labastida Ochoa, who oversees domestic security, said he favors a public debate on the death penalty.

Labastida’s comments opened the floodgates. In recent days, politicians, church leaders, intellectuals and others have weighed in with differing opinions on capital punishment. “People are bothered when it’s Americans that condemn Mexicans to death,” noted political analyst Jose Antonio Crespo. “But now, with the increase in crime in Mexico, and above all with the case of Arizmendi, many people want the death penalty in Mexico.”

Mexican courts haven’t applied the death penalty since the 1950s. While permitted in the constitution, it is not included in the penal codes of many states. Until recently, there was no move to change those codes; a consensus had developed that the practice is inhumane, legal experts say.

In the past, the government has opposed the death penalty so firmly that it has refused to extradite Mexicans when they could face execution.

But the consensus appears to be eroding as Mexico faces seemingly runaway crime, much of it blamed on the police themselves. A recent poll in the Mexico City daily Reforma found the city’s population sharply divided: 39% strongly supported the death penalty, while 34% strongly opposed it.

*

Labastida’s ministry defended his call for a debate by noting the country’s transformation from an authoritarian, one-party state to a democracy where citizens’ opinions count.

“In an open society, which day by day is perfecting and consolidating its democracy, it is inevitable and beneficial that citizens emit different opinions about national subjects, among them . . . the death penalty,” the ministry said in a statement.

Not everyone is convinced. Some critics saw the unexpected change in the government’s position as an attempt to deflect attention from other problems, such as the expensive bailout of the country’s troubled banks.

Despite the debate, there is no sign that Mexico will soon institute capital punishment. All three major political parties oppose it. Even some supporters acknowledge that, with the justice system in a state of crisis, the penalty could be applied to the wrong people.

Many analysts say the debate reflects not political differences but rather despair over the government’s inability to reduce crime.

“In our terrible situation, unless we modify the things that encourage and cause crime, it won’t matter much whether or not we establish the death penalty,” political analyst Humberto Musacchio wrote in Reforma. “Things won’t change because of a legal reform.”