The Obama administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop Texas from executing a Mexican citizen convicted of raping and killing a 16-year-old girl.

U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli made the request Friday involving Humberto Leal Garcia, who is scheduled to be executed on July 7.

Earlier this week, Leal's lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a stay of his scheduled execution.

They filed a petition saying Texas authorities violated Leal's rights under the Vienna Convention by not giving him proper access to Mexican consular officials after his arrest in the 1990s.

Leal, a 38-year-old native of Monterrey, Mexico, was later sentenced to death by a Texas court.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Jose Medellin, a Mexican national who was later executed. The court rejected an argument by Medellin's lawyers that his right to consular aid under the Vienna Convention had been violated.

The U.S. reinstated use of the death penalty in 1976. Texas has since executed more than four times as many prisoners as any of the other 49 states.