Occasionally, prosecutors get a request from an inmate to serve a sentence in the country of their origin. With the State's permission, that can happen. So far, I have not seen a case in which it would be appropriate. Today's news makes it even less likely for inmates from south of Texas:
MONTERREY, NUEVO LEON - The revelation that guards confessed to helping members of the violent Zetas drug cartel slaughter 44 rival inmates and break out of a Mexican prison throws new attention on the enormous corruption inside the country's overcrowded, underfunded prisons.
I've have this request twice in 21 years in the DA's office. The request actually came from the Governor's office after the defendant petitioned them, and they wanted my input on the defendant and his prison sentence. The trouble is, all control is lost by TDCJ if the request is granted and the defendant is incarcerated in Mexico. If the defendant's brother in law is the warden of the prison, he could get released, or as the article JB referenced, "escape". Each time I have asked about this procedure, I have not gotten responses which made me want to agree to it, but both requests were from sex offenders. If it were a UUMV, perhaps I would think about it. As it was, I did not recommend it be done, and neither of the defendant's requests was granted by the Governor. There does not seem to be any type of way to monitor the defendant if they were transferred, and no type of parole system if they were released before serving out the full sentence. Way too many unanswered questions about the procedures, and no one who seemed to know any of the answers. This was passed as a type of money saving measure, more than likely, with the benefit of perhaps having a defendant closer to friends and family for visitation and rehabilitation. To me, the risks did not outweigh the reward, but, it was not the prosecutor's decision. The Governor's office made the right call on both defendants, in my opinion, by keeping them right here to serve the sentences they had earned. On the flip side, the way I understand it, an American citizen imprisoned in Mexico for a crime committed there could ask for his time to be done here. The treaty provides for that.
