Breard v. Greene, 523 U.S. 371, 7 (1998) (per curiam)

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Cite as: 523 U. S. 371 (1998)

Per Curiam

gues, is not justified because his Vienna Convention claims were so novel that he could not have discovered them any earlier. Assuming that were true, such novel claims would be barred on habeas review under Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989).

Even were Breard's Vienna Convention claim properly raised and proved, it is extremely doubtful that the violation should result in the overturning of a final judgment of conviction without some showing that the violation had an effect on the trial. Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U. S. 279 (1991). In this action, no such showing could even arguably be made. Breard decided not to plead guilty and to testify at his own trial contrary to the advice of his attorneys, who were likely far better able to explain the United States legal system to him than any consular official would have been. Breard's asserted prejudice—that had the Vienna Convention been followed, he would have accepted the State's offer to forgo the death penalty in return for a plea of guilty— is far more speculative than the claims of prejudice courts routinely reject in those cases where an inmate alleges that his plea of guilty was infected by attorney error. See, e. g., Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U. S. 52, 59 (1985).

As for Paraguay's suits (both the original action and the case coming to us on petition for certiorari), neither the text nor the history of the Vienna Convention clearly provides a foreign nation a private right of action in United States courts to set aside a criminal conviction and sentence for violation of consular notification provisions. The Eleventh Amendment provides a separate reason why Paraguay's suit might not succeed. That Amendment's "fundamental principle" that "the States, in the absence of consent, are immune from suits brought against them . . . by a foreign State" was enunciated in Principality of Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U. S. 313, 329-330 (1934). Though Paraguay claims that its suit is within an exemption dealing with continuing consequences of past violations of federal rights, see Milliken v.

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