Karl and Walter Bernhard LaGrand Criminals Country: USA

1. The LaGrand Brothers: Biography
2. No Consular Assistance Provided
3. Execution of Karl and Walter LaGrand
4. German Lawsuit and International Court of Justice Decision

The LaGrand Brothers: Biography

The LaGrand brothers, Karl and Walter Bernhard LaGrand, were born in Germany. They committed an armed robbery in Marana, Arizona, United States, on January 7, 1982, during which they killed a male bank manager and seriously injured a woman. They were later brought to trial and convicted of murder, receiving the death penalty.

No Consular Assistance Provided

Despite living in the United States since the age of 4-5, neither Karl nor Walter had American citizenship. As foreign nationals, they were entitled to consular assistance under the Vienna Convention. However, the authorities in Arizona failed to inform them of their rights, even after it was discovered that the LaGrand brothers were Germans. It was only later, at their own initiative, that the brothers contacted the German embassy to learn about their right to consular assistance. They claimed that they were not informed of their rights and were thus deprived of the opportunity to mount a potentially stronger defense in court. The federal court rejected these arguments, stating that the issue could not be raised in federal court if it had not been raised first in state court.

Execution of Karl and Walter LaGrand

Karl LaGrand was executed on February 24, 1999, by lethal injection. Walter LaGrand was executed in the gas chamber on March 3, 1999. Germany initiated a lawsuit against the United States in the International Court of Justice regarding Walter's case. Just hours before his execution, the Central European country requested the court to issue an order demanding the United States to postpone Walter's execution, a request that the court granted.

German Lawsuit and International Court of Justice Decision

Germany subsequently appealed the decision to the United States Supreme Court, which stated that it did not have jurisdiction to hear Germany's complaint against Arizona due to the 11th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits federal courts from hearing suits by foreign states against American states. It was argued that the failure to inform the LaGrand brothers of their rights did not violate the provisions of the Vienna Convention. Furthermore, even if the failure to provide notification constituted a breach of the Convention, this contention should now be rejected based on the 1996 federal law on combating terrorism and the efficiency of the death penalty. The United States Solicitor General sent a letter to the Supreme Court within this litigation, claiming that the temporary measures of the International Court were not legally binding.

On June 27, 2001, the International Court of Justice rejected all arguments presented by the United States and ruled in favor of Germany. The Court determined that the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of April 24, 1963, provided rights to individuals based on its plain meaning and that domestic laws cannot limit the rights of the accused in accordance with the Convention, but only indicate which rights can be exercised. The Court also concluded that its own provisional measures were legally binding. The essence of provisional measures has been a subject of great debate in international law; the English text of the International Court of Justice Statute indicates that provisional measures are optional, while the French text indicates the opposite. Faced with contradictions between two equally authentic texts of the statute, the Court compared which interpretation of the statute was better and settled on the second option. Such a situation had never occurred before in the history of judicial proceedings.