"El Chapo" Guzman Loera fears Death Penalty in the United States

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Zetatijuana Article, with editorial update by Chivis

Tribunal orders a Judge to admit an amparo against extradition, the ex leader of the Sinaloa Cartel fears the death penalty in the United States.

Zeta Investigations

A Collegiate Tribunal in Penal Matters of the First Circuit ordered a Judge of Amparo of Penal Matters to admit a demand of Guarantee of Protection of the narco trafficker Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera against the probable order of extradition to the United States.

Originally, the Thirteenth District Judge of Amparo of the Federal District, dismissed the December 16th application of former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, considering that the complainant claimed future and uncertain events. The ruling was challenged by the capo by process of complaint appeal.

Judges of the Fifth Collegiate Criminal Court of the First Circuit stated the complaint had foundation, holding that the Judge had to admit the amparo under basic human rights and resolve the procedural moments that apply, according to a copy in possession of ZETA weekly.

The Claims of "El Chapo"

In the injunction dismissed 1233/2014 Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera as responsible to the Secretary of the Interior, the Attorney Generals Office, Foreign Secretary and Ambassador of Mexico to the United States Authorities.

He is also seeking an amparo against SEIDO, a Public Ministerial Agent of the Federation in charge of making the application for the extradition order and of the Federal Judge of Penal Processes of the Fourth District in Mexico City who knows of his evasion of prison process in 2001, among other Authorities.

In regard of who those Foreign Authorities are said the Attorney General, The Secretary General of National Security, The Director of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in Chicago, Illinois and the Governor of the State of Texas.

"El Chapo Guzman" claims of National Authorities, as future acts and imminent, "the unconstitutional, authoritarian and unpatriotic order or arrangement that the Ministerial and Judicial Authorities give so that they may cultivate a process against me for the purpose of extradition to the United States of North America, or some foreign country".

The Sinaloan narco trafficker cites a discharged declaration of the 9th of December, next passed by the American Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee, pointing out that" the United States maintains secret prisons designed to infer abhorrent torture".

Guzman Loera warns that " by means of offensive torture, they will make me plead guilty to the commission of crimes they say I have committed, and thus apply harsh penalties to me, even the death penalty, which is expressly forbidden by the General Constitution of the Republic".

Against the Foreign Authorities he claims, " the commission of acts both future and imminent relations with his obstinate intention to extradite me to the United States of North America to be judged by this nation and with the application of cruel degradation, cruel or inhuman maltreatment, and with the testimony of paid, taught and protected witnesses, force me to plead guilty to serious offences I have not committed, with the execution of the unconstitutional order of extradition, related to the death penalty".

Media Proofs of the Capo

Later, the Judge of the 13th District of Amparo in Penal Matters of Mexico City cast off the demand for guarantees of Joaquin Archivaldo, the narco traffickers Lawyers laid hands on the complaint appeal of all those media statement made by officials, mostly American, to show that the interest to extradite him to a foreign country is a future and imminent act.

That way, before the Fifth Tribunal College in Penal Matters of the Federal District, the defenders of Guzman cited that the Prosecutor General of the United States of America, informed the congress of his country that, he had a personal interest in extraditing his client " to give him a perpetual prison sentence, the equivalent of a death penalty".

In their grievances, the representatives of "El Chapo" deem that in a 2014 conversation made between the American Prosecutor General and the Prosecutor General of Mexico, Jesus Murillo Karam, on the subject, ensuring the latter to the former " that his extradition would be a matter of time".


The Secretary for National Security for the United States of America cited his declaration before the Security Committee in the House of Representatives of this country, where he said of the narco trafficker " I want him to face justice in the United States and assure myself that he will never again return to the streets again".

The legal representatives of Joaquin Guzman estimate that the Judgement sought by foreign officials, in a public hearing and published in the mass media is equivalent to the death penalty.

About the Governor of Texas, the Lawyers refer to diverse occasions when he has expressed publicly that it is managing that Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is judged in that state "in order to apply the rigor of the law".

They detailed that Texas is a North American entity" that applies the death penalty, principally to persons of Mexican decent, as has happened in current times, and for an example they cite the executions of Ramiro Hernandez Llanas on the 9th of April 2014, and of Miguel Angel Paredes, on the 28th of October, also in the past year.

In reference to the Director of the DEA in Chicago, Illinois, Jack Riley, they highlight the statements issued by the Police Chief of Chicago to the Chicago Sun Times newspaper on February the 23rd, 2014: "we will do everything possible to bring "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States to apply the rigor of the law, the punishment will be that he will never be allowed to return to the street".

Also to prove that the extradition against the Mexican is an act future and imminent, the complaint states that the Ambassador to Mexico in Washington, D.C. " has manifested emphatically before the North American press, that Joaquin Guzman will be extradited to the United States to be judged and to apply the law, this is a question of time, and it will be very soon".

Months of Hell in Altiplano

"Under protest to tell the truth", the drug trafficker said in his statement of claim that on February 22nd of 2014, he was arrested in the port of Mazatlan by elements of the Secretariat of the Marines, without a warrant, or an arrest warrant, nor of the unconstitutional order of location and presentation.

From the moment of his violent detention, he says he was taken to CEFERESO No. 1 Altiplano, in Almoloya of Juarez, State of Mexico, where he is being held and where in the eight months since his arrest, the prison authority has subjected him to the most infamous, cruel and inhumane form of imprisonment, in special segregation cell, for punishment where he has been subjected to brutal psychological and moral harm.

He adds that, his family and their attorneys "we fear with the unconstitutional and irrelevant tricks and gadgets, he will be extradited to the United States of America or some other foreign country, where the United States has secret prisons in order to be judged and condemned to death or prison in perpetuity.

Therefore the complainant requested a guarantee of constitutional legality from the Collegiate Body, that grants the suspension of plan of acts, and claims final time amparo and protection of Federal Justice, against acts claimed by all complaining Authorities.

Proceeding to admit the demand

Unanimously, the Judges of the Collegiate Court considered "wrong the determination of the District Judge, in dismissing the demand by disrupting the essential principles of the amparo trial" and declared founded, the grievances put forward by "El Chapo" Guzman.

The Court of Appeal ordered the Judge, that there did not exist reasons for scrapping the demand of amparo, to assume the jurisdiction that suits you, and at the appropriate procedural time resolve relation. The 13th District Judge already made reception of Judgement and complied with the Judgement of the Guarantees admission. They even granted the level of suspension to the complainant, for that at the moment, they are not ordering the provisional arrest for the purposes of international extradition against Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera.

It transpires that for reasons set forth in the Mexican Legislation the amparo petition by "El Chapo", does not proceed against foreign authorities, so they could cause dismissal in that sense, but undoubtedly the constitutional judgement against the Mexican Authorities should be reviewed.

Original article in Spanish at Zetatijuana

To even up the facts here is an Editorial by Chivis:

Persons extradited from México cannot be executed 

(First off, Otis this is not a reflection on your great work.)

In a treaty with Mexico, initiated under the presidency of Jimmy Carter, the US agrees not to impose the death penalty on person’s extradited from Mexico. (article 8) or if it does-they will not execute.

The caveat is Mexican nationals in the US legal status or not, and is not the product of an extradition from Mexico, can and have been executed.

Executed Mexican National

For example the Zeta article highlights Ramiro Hernandez llanas.  The killer (in Mx and US) Executed in 2014.

In 1997, Glen Lich, 49, hired Hernandez-Llanas to work for him to help renovate his ranch near the city of Kerrville (Texas)

Unbeknownst to Lich, Hernandez-Llanas had recently escaped from a Mexican prison where he was serving a 25-year sentence for a 1989 murder in his hometown of Nuevo Lareo.

Several days later, Hernandez-Llanas lured Lich away from his house by telling him falsely there was a problem with a generator. He beat the man to death with a length of steel rebar leaving the man unrecognizable, then entered the house and attacked Lich's wife Lera.

Hernandez rapes Lera four times, and then ransacks the home for valuables and forces Lera to give him money.  Exhausted he falls asleep and Lera managed to untie herself and escape to a neighbor’s home, where authorities were called.

He was arrested, he insisted he “only struck the rancher once, and raped the woman only once”.

While he was in prison awaiting his murder trial, angry because he was not given eggs for breakfast, Hernandez assaulted a jailer in the face with a shank.  He was convicted of an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and was given a 40-year sentence for that offense.

His last statement was an apology, asking for forgiveness, and saying he was at peace.

Life without parole and the death penalty

The Zeta article also highlights Texas’ executions.  Mexicans nationals may be fooled but not citizens of the US.  Chapo would be tried in Federal Court, not under Texas jurisdiction.

Chapo’s filing of amparo was an exercise of covering all bases, and tossing a few  Hail Mary passes.

However, there is a possibility that Chapo could very well receive a sentence of life without parole.  That said, only one Mexican narco has been sentenced to life without parole, and that was Francisco Javier Arellano Félix, alias "El Tigrillo". But he is not an extradition case.

He was arrested by the US Coastguard while fishing in international waters off BC.  So he was fair game to US authorities and the treaty would not apply.  Arellano Félix worried about the death penalty, pled guilty to all charges in exchange for life without parole.

No other Mexican  crime figure has been so sentenced.

The life sentence is most likely the real fear of Chapo.  Even without the “no possibility of parole” stipulation, in theory, a sentence of 30 years or more would mean a death sentence.