A defense attorney representing the Jamaican trucker whose trailer became a deathtrap for illegal immigrants in a Texas parking lot wants the trucker’s statements to police thrown out.

The defense in the trial of Tyrone Williams has asked the court to suppress statements that Williams made to police after the incident because he was not allowed to speak with a consular officer from his country. Williams, who is Jamaican, faces the death penalty in the case of the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants he was allegedly attempting to smuggle in a trailer in May 2003.

The operation went wrong when Williams’ trailer – which was being used to move at least 74 illegal immigrants from South Texas to Houston – was abandoned at a truck stop near Victoria, TX.

Nineteen people died as a result. Seventeen of them died inside the trailer of dehydration, overheating and suffocation. Two others died later.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Williams’ defense attorney claims that, by failing to give him access to Jamaican officials, federal investigators violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

In March, Williams was convicted of 38 of 58 smuggling counts. The jury in that trial was deadlocked on the rest, leading prosecutors to pursue a retrial on all 58 charges.

The Chronicle reported that the U.S. Justice Department has had almost 70 cases in which it has sought the death penalty under an 11-year-old smuggling law. Those cases are rare, legal experts told the newspaper, because it is difficult to convince a jury to deliver a death penalty for smuggling.

Williams’ second trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 28.