312.1113 Sustaita, Antonio/33
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Mexico (Daniels)
Sir: The Department has received your despatch No. 4600 of April 20, 1937, with which you enclosed a note from the Mexican Foreign Office dated April 14, 1937, declining to pay an indemnity on account of the shockingly inadequate sentence imposed upon Miguel Valero Rodríquez, then a Mexican Customs official, for the murder on June 10, 1934, at Matamoros, Mexico, of Antonio Sustaita, an American citizen.
As was stated in the Department’s instruction No. 1105 of May 27, 1936,1 it was felt that it would only be necessary to call the facts in this case to the attention of the Mexican Government, whereupon its sense of fairness and justice would be satisfied by nothing less than the prompt payment of a suitable indemnity for the wife and children of the deceased. Therefore, the Department is surprised and disappointed at the attitude taken by the Mexican Government and is especially surprised at the novel ground upon which the declination was based, namely, that the omission to punish Valero adequately, if it exists, “causes no direct damage either to the murdered man or to the United States of America” and therefore involves no denial of justice. The Department is not aware of any basis in international law for this attitude of the Mexican Government and in this relation refers to the following cases decided by the General Claims Commission, [Page 707] United States and Mexico, wherein the indicated awards were made by the unanimous opinions of the commissioners:
In an opinion rendered May 6, 1927, and written by the Mexican Commissioner in the matter of the claim of George Adams Kennedy,2 an award of $6,000 was made to this American citizen on the ground of a denial of justice arising in part from the fact that the sentence of two months imprisonment imposed upon Manuel Robles, a Mexican citizen, for the serious wounding of Kennedy was “out of proportion to the seriousness of his crime”. In the course of the principal opinion, Commissioner Fernandez MacGregor said: “I think that the international duty which a state has duly to punish those who, within its territory, commit a crime against aliens, implies the obligation to impose on the criminal a penalty proportionate to his crime”.
In his concurring opinion, Commissioner Nielsen said: “I think that enough has been said to justify the conclusion which the three Commissioners have reached to the effect that the instant case reveals a denial of justice within the meaning of international law”.
On April 2, 1929, the Commission rendered an opinion awarding $8,000 on behalf of Ethel Morton,3 widow of Genaro W. Morton, an American citizen, who was murdered in Mexico City in 1916. The basis of the award was stated to be the “wholly inadequate sentence of four years” imposed upon the killer. The Commission said: “The responsibility of a nation under international law for failure of authorities adequately to punish wrongdoers has frequently been discussed by this Commission”.
Under date of October 24, 1930, the Commission in a decision written by the Mexican Commissioner awarded to the widow and minor son of Ralph Greenlaw,4 $7,000 on account of remissness of Mexican judicial authorities in the prosecution and punishment of the murderers of this American citizen. One of the grounds assigned by the Commission for its decision was the inadequacy of the penalties imposed upon four of the persons arrested for the crime in question.
You will please bring the foregoing to the attention of the Mexican Foreign Office and in this relation refer to the contrast between the attitude of the Mexican Government in this case and that of the Government of the United States, which promptly paid an indemnity to the Mexican Government on account of the killing in 1931 in the State of Oklahoma of Manuel Gomez and Emilo Cortes Rubio.5 Finally, you will please state that it is the expectation of this Government to present to the Government of Mexico a formal claim for the payment of indemnity on behalf of the widow and minor children of Sustaita, [Page 708] but that it had hoped, as above indicated, that it would be unnecessary to take such action.
Very truly yours,
- Not printed.↩
- Opinions of Commissioners Under the Convention Concluded September 8, 1923 Between the United States and Mexico, February 4, 1926 to July 23, 1927 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1927), pp. 289, 301.↩
- General Claims Commission (U. S. and Mexico) 1929–1931, Opinions of Commissioners Under the Convention Concluded September 8, 1923, as Extended by the Convention Signed August 16, 1927, Between the United States and Mexico, September 26, 1928, to May 17, 1929, pp. 151–161.↩
- Opinions of Commissioners Under the Convention Concluded September 8, 1923, as Extended by Subsequent Conventions, Between the United States and Mexico, October 1930 to July 1981, pp. 112–120.↩
- See Foreign Relations, 1931, vol. ii, pp. 708 ff.↩