Here's a bit more on that story...
Supreme Court to Hear Appeal of Mexican Death Row Inmate
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
Published: May 1, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 30 — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from a Mexican citizen on death row in Texas whose case has embroiled the World Court, the Bush administration and the State of Texas in a conflict that has only deepened in the two years since the justices last considered how to resolve it.
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Texas Department of Criminal Justice
The World Court found that José E. MedellÃn did not receive help from Mexico required by a treaty.
The inmate, José E. MedellÃn, is one of 50 Mexicans on death rows in various states who, the World Court found in 2004, had been charged and tried without the assistance from Mexican diplomats to which an international treaty entitled them.
The United States is a signatory to the treaty, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which requires local authorities to inform foreign nationals being held on criminal charges of the right to consult with their country’s diplomats. The requirement was, until recently, widely ignored.
In the World Court, formally known as the International Court of Justice, Mexico sued the United States on behalf of its citizens who had been sentenced to death without receiving the required “consular notification.†The court ruled that the United States was obliged to have the defendants’ cases reopened and reconsidered.
Initially, the Bush administration described Mexico’s suit as “an unjustified, unwise and ultimately unacceptable intrusion in the United States criminal justice system.†But in early 2005, with Mr. MedellÃn’s death-penalty appeal pending before the Supreme Court, the White House announced that it would abide by the World Court’s decision by instructing the states to reconsider the convictions and sentences of the Mexican nationals on death row. The Supreme Court then dismissed Mr. MedellÃn’s case to enable the Texas courts to comply with that directive.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to relax its procedural rules that barred any reconsideration. One of the court’s judges, in a concurring opinion, accused the White House of an “unprecedented, unnecessary and intrusive exercise of power over the Texas court system†— language that echoed the criticism that the administration had once directed at Mexico.
Now, however, the administration has entered the case on Mr. MedellÃn’s behalf and urged the Supreme Court to overturn the Texas court’s decision. The case, MedellÃn v. Texas, No. 06-984, will be argued next fall. The government’s brief, filed by Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, told the justices that the Texas court’s decision, if not reversed, “will place the United States in breach of its international law obligation†to comply with the World Court’s decision and would “frustrate the president’s judgment that foreign policy interests are best served by giving effect to that decision.â€
Mr. MedellÃn was a gang member in Houston when he was convicted in 1993 of participating in the gang rape and murder of two teenage girls. In urging the Supreme Court not to hear the case, the Texas solicitor general, R. Ted Cruz, recounted the crime in vivid detail and said that the Texas court had applied its usual rules in concluding that Mr. MedellÃn was procedurally barred from reopening his case. The president had no constitutional authority to pre-empt the state’s procedural rules, Mr. Cruz said.
Mexico filed a brief on Mr. MedellÃn’s behalf, noting its desire to provide “critical resources to aid in the defense of its nationals facing the death penalty.†Mexico noted that last month, the Texas court had denied relief to five other Mexican death-row inmates who are also governed by the World Court decision. “Bilateral relations between the United States and Mexico†will “unquestionably†be affected by these cases, Mexico’s brief said.
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Regardless of whether Mr. Medellin is guilty of committing this horrific crime or not, it seems to me that if you sign up to a convention then you should either abide by it, or withdraw completely. The US doesn't seem to have a particularly good record of sticking to the agreements it signs up to of late. Hopefully that will change when the republicans get kicked out of office at the next election.
Oh, just in case anyone is interested, here's a quick list of those broken treaties, including the Vienna Treaty...
1. Ottawa Treaty (the land-mine ban)
2. Treaty on the Rights of the Child (only holdouts are the U.S. and Somalia)
3. Protocol to enforce the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (vote was 178-1, the US the only holdout)
4. United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
5. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
6. Convention on Biological Diversity
7. International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families
8. Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)
9. International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings
10. International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.
11. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
12. Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes Against Humanity
13. Forced Labor Convention
14. Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention
15. Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention
16. Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age to Marriage and Registration of Marriages
17. Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
18. Convention on the International Right of Correction
19. International Criminal Court
20. Kyoto Accords (greenhouse gas reductions)
21. UN Convention on Biological Diversity (regulating genetic engineering)
22. UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
23. Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty [prohibiting programs like "Stars Wars"]
24. Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal
25. Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes
26. International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries
27. International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid
28. Convention concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment
29. Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
30. Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers (prohibiting sale of arms to human rights violators & aggressors)
31. Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
32. Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, and Other Related Materials
33. UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (bans toxic waste dumping, etc.)
34. UN Moon Treaty [declaring the moon part of the Common Heritage of Mankind]
35. Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
36. UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
37. Protocol to enforce the Convention Against Torture
38. United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime
- By litwin
- By wat0n
- By Tainari88