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President Bush Seeks to Halt the Execution of Mexican National that Participated in Gang Rape and Murder of Two Texas Teens

President Bush continues down the path that makes conservative blood boil in his latest move to halt the execution of a Mexican national that participated in the gang-rape and strangulation of two teenage girls.

This solidifies it for me, President Bush is a national embarrassment. It is moves such as this that pushed the Republican Party base to sit out in 2006.

The ramifications of the Bush administration’s actions in this case can reverberate well beyond the people affected by the 1993 crime. At stake is a Supreme Court decision to decide whether or not a U.S. federal court is bound by international law that would give foreign nationals the right to seek legal help in U.S. courts according to the 1963 Vienna Convention. As such the Bush administration is a contradiction in terms. Rightfully opposing the slippery slope of internationalists and their constitution weakening reach in many instances yet inexplicably trying to hold Texas to the international court’s interpretation in the case of a murderous rapist that just happens to be a Mexican national.

Worse however is the fact that the case could lead to the same rights being granted to 50 other Mexican nationals sitting on death row. The domino affect could reverberate throughout the nation.

The Bush administration is playing the “American interests” card in explaining the decision to help Mexico out.

“The president does not agree with the ICJ’s interpretation of the Vienna Convention,” the administration said in arguments filed with the court. This time, though, the U.S. agreed to abide by the international court’s decision because ignoring it would harm American interests abroad, the government said. - Fox News

Here are the sick details in the Medellin case.

Medellin was born in Mexico but spent much of his childhood in the United States. He was 18 in June 1993, when he and other members of the Black and Whites gang in Houston encountered Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena on a railroad trestle as the girls were taking a shortcut home.

Ertman, 14, and Pena, 16, were gang-raped and strangled. Their bodies were found four days later.

Medellin was arrested a few days after the killings. He was told he had a right to remain silent and have a lawyer present, but the police did not tell him that he could request assistance from the Mexican consulate under the 1963 treaty.

Medellin gave a written confession. He was convicted of murder in the course of a sexual assault, a capital offense in Texas. A judge sentenced him to death in October 1994.

Medellin did not raise the lack of assistance from Mexican diplomats during his trial or sentencing. When he did claim his rights had been violated, Texas and federal courts turned him down because he had not objected at his trial.

Then, in 2003, Mexico sued the United States in the International Court of Justice in The Hague on behalf of Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on death row in the U.S. who also had been denied access to their country’s diplomats following their arrests. - Forbes

For some inexplicable reason the American government is yet again capitulating to the thug lefties in the Mexican government. The Supreme Court is set to hear the case. The resulting decision may let many convicted murders off the hook.

The international court ruled for Mexico in 2004, saying the sentences and convictions should be reviewed by U.S. courts.

Medellin’s case was rejected by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal. While it was pending in Washington, Bush issued a memo to his attorney general declaring that state courts must enforce the international court’s ruling.

Two weeks after the memo, Bush said the U.S. was withdrawing from an international accord that lets the world court have the final say when citizens claim they were illegally denied access to their diplomats when they are jailed abroad.

The treaty had been used by the United States in its lawsuit against Iran for taking Americans hostages in 1979.

The Supreme Court weighed in next, dismissing Medellin’s case while state courts reviewed Bush’s order. Texas courts again ruled against Medellin, saying Bush overstepped his authority by intruding into the affairs of the independent judiciary.

In April, the Surpeme Court stepped in for a second time, putting Bush and the state he governed on opposite sides and setting up an unusual alliance of interests.

Foreign inmates on death rows in California, Florida, Texas and up to a dozen other states could be affected by the outcome.

This case will be heard by the Supreme Court starting with oral arguments on October 10.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] ruled Monday that foreign prisoners do not have a cause of action under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations [PDF text] if police do not inform the inmate of their right under the treaty to call the inmate’s home country embassy following arrest. Finding that the Vienna Convention is applicable only to sovereign nations, and not individuals, the court wrote [opinion, PDF]:

Article 36 [of the convention] does not create judicially enforceable rights. Article 36 confers legal rights and obligations on States in order to facilitate and promote consular functions. Consular functions include protecting the interests of detained nationals, and for that purpose detainees have the right (if they want) for the consular post to be notified of their situation. In this sense, detained foreign nationals benefit from Article 36’s provisions. But the right to protect nationals belongs to States party to the Convention; no private right is unambiguously conferred on individual detainees.

Attorneys for the inmate plaintiffs indicated that they plan on filing an appeal with the US Supreme Court, saying that other federal jurisdictions have held that the convention does indeed provide such an enforceable right to individuals. - Jurist

Texas already executed one of the 6 people convicted in the case. Jose Ernesto Medellin’s brother also participated in the violent gang rape and murder. He was 14 at the time and is spending 40 years in prison after which he will be put back on the street. Texas is telling both President Bush and the international court that they don’t have jurisdiction. I would be a little less cordial; they can pump sticks.

See Also: Michelle Malkin, Big Dog, Right Truth

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