3/28/2005
By Dave Montgomery
Star-Telegram Washington Bureau
Topics: Gang Rape, Gangs, Illegal Immigration, Illegal Alien, Security, Laws, Crimes, President, Congress, Senate, Americans

A Mexican national facing execution in the gang rape and killings of two teen-age girls in Houston more than a decade ago is at the center of an international legal drama that goes before the U.S. Supreme Court today.

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The case of Jose Ernesto Medellin, one of 443 people on Texas' Death Row, encompasses a global debate on the death penalty. It has also sparked a legal showdown between Texas and its former governor, President Bush.

At issue is Medellin's assertion that he was not informed of his right to contact the Mexican consulate after his arrest, in violation of a 4-decade-old international treaty ratified by 166 countries, including the United States.

Medellin, now 30, was born in Mexico but has lived in the United States since childhood. A former member of a Houston gang known as the Black and Whites, Medellin was one of five people sentenced to die for the rapes and killings of two girls who stumbled into a gang initiation while hurrying home from a party.

Since Medellin first lodged his appeal with aggressive backing by the Mexican government, the case has broadened to include 50 other Mexican nationals on Death Row in Texas and eight other states.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands, commonly known as the World Court, ruled that the 51 Mexican defendants were not properly notified of their rights to consular access and therefore were entitled to new hearings.

Under the treaty that created the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations in 1963, a detained foreign national in any of the 166 participating countries is entitled to contact his or her consular officials "without delay."

In a surprise turn late last month, the Bush administration ordered Texas and the other states with condemned Mexican prisoners to grant new hearings to comply with the World Court ruling.

The administration added a further twist days later by announcing U.S. withdrawal from the optional protocol that established the World Court as the enforcement body in Vienna Convention disputes.

While that move raised questions about future enforcement, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the administration supports consular notification and stands behind its order involving the Mexican defendants.

The administration's order, which came in a brief filed in the Supreme Court case, underscored the diplomatic sensitivities of the death penalty dispute and came shortly before Rice's first state visit to Mexico, which vigorously opposes the executions of Mexican nationals in the United States.

But it also triggered a backlash in Texas, where Gov. Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott have vowed to resist the World Court ruling. Texas has 16 Mexican nationals awaiting execution, all but one of whom are subject to the World Court order.

Moreover, the administration's actions complicate the case before the Supreme Court and raise further uncertainty about the justices' decision, which is expected later this year. Legal experts say the high court's options include dismissing Medellin's appeal and setting a new legal precedent that would redefine what effect international treaties have on U.S. law.

The scope of the hearings ordered by the World Court, as well as Bush's order, also remains unclear and will likely be determined case by case, experts say.

It's not a get-out-of-jail-free card, said Lori Damrosch, a professor of international law at Columbia University in New York and an adviser to Medellin's legal team.

In Oklahoma, the World Court ruling prompted Gov. Brad Henry to commute the death sentence of Osbaldo Torres, a Mexican national convicted of killing an Oklahoma City couple. A state district judge ruled last week that Torres should have been told of his right to contact the Mexican consulate; the case now goes to an appeals court, which will either order a new trial or affirm the conviction.

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