Humberto Leal Garcia

The administration submitted a 30-page brief to the Supreme Court asking them to stay Leal's execution while Congress considered legislation relating to the right of foreign nationals on death row to contact their consulate for legal aid. On July 7, 2011, the court ruled 5–4 that Congress had had adequate time to do so, and wrote in an unsigned majority opinion that it would not "prohibit a state from carrying out a lawful judgment in light of unenacted legislation."

After 16 years of appeals, Leal was executed by lethal injection at 6:21 p.m. CST on July 7, 2011. He admitted responsibility for the crime and said he was sorry, and his final words included "Viva México". Leal's last meal consisted of fried chicken, pico de gallo, and tacos guisados.

Euna Lee, an American journalist who was arrested in North Korea in 2009, criticized the United States' failure to comply with the Vienna Convention, saying that she believed "prompt consular access" protected her from physical mistreatment while a prisoner, and that the decision in the Leal case would encourage foreign governments to violate the rights of American citizens abroad.

A 2004 ruling by the International Court of Justice (in Avena and Other Mexican Nationals (Mexico v. United States of America)) found that about 50 other Mexican nationals condemned to execution in the United States and he had been denied their right under the Vienna Convention to be told that they may contact their consular officials. A 2008 Supreme Court decision declared the international court's decision binding on the Federal Government, but said that Congress must pass a law obliging states to comply.

While on death row, he was originally held at the Ellis Unit. From 1999 to 2000, the state death row for men was moved to the Polunsky Unit (formerly the Terrell Unit). He had the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Death Row ID# 999162.

The failure to inform Leal of his rights created legal controversy. In 1998, he appealed his death sentence on the grounds that police had not informed him that he could call the Mexican consulate. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had already upheld the sentence in February of that year, but international law had not been considered in the ruling.

On May 21, 1994, Leal kidnapped, raped, and murdered 16-year-old Adria Sauceda. The girl had been at a party and became intoxicated, and a group of men gang-raped her. Leal is said to have offered to drive her home, and the two struggled when Sauceda tried to get out of the car away from the party.

Humberto Leal García Jr. (January 16, 1973 – July 7, 2011) was a Mexican national who was sentenced to death in the US state of Texas for the May 21, 1994, rape, torture, and murder of Adria Sauceda in San Antonio. Despite calls from US President Barack Obama, the US State Department, and Mexico on Texas for a last-minute reprieve, Leal was executed as scheduled on July 7, 2011.