Thread: Texas defies World Court, Bush on execution

Aug 3, 5:05 PM EDT

Texas defies World Court, Bush on execution
By MICHAEL GRACZYK

HOUSTON (AP) -- The planned execution this week of a man convicted in one of Houston's most brutal murder cases in a generation has become among the most contentious in the state that has the nation's busiest capital punishment system.

International attention has been focused on the execution of convicted killer Jose Medellin scheduled for Tuesday. The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, said the Mexican-born Medellin and some 50 other Mexicans on death row around the nation should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether a 1963 treaty was violated during their arrests.

Medellin, now 33, is the first among the 50 who is set to die.

His attorneys contend Medellin was denied the protections of the Vienna Convention, which calls for people arrested to have access to their home country's consular officials. He has been in the United States since the age of 3.

"The United States' word should not be so carelessly broken, nor its standing in the international community so needlessly compromised," Medellin's attorneys said, seeking a reprieve in a filing late last week with the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court had not issued any ruling as of Sunday.

President Bush has asked states to review the cases. Texas has refused to budge.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico warned of possible protests there Tuesday.

Medellin's lawyers went to the Supreme Court after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, refused to stop the lethal injection. The justices ruled in March that neither the President nor the international court can force Texas' hand.

"There is no dispute that if Texas executes Mr. Medellin in these circumstances, Texas would cause the United States irreparably to breach treaty commitments made on behalf of the United States as a whole and thereby compromise U.S. interests that both this Court and the President have described as compelling," Medellin's attorneys said in their filing.

Texas officials acknowledge that Medellin was not told he could ask for help from Mexican diplomats but argued he forfeited the right because he never raised the issue until four years after his conviction. In any case, the diplomats' intercession wouldn't have made any difference in the outcome of the case, they said.

Medellin speaks, reads and writes English and gave a written confession.

"Don't feel sorry for me," he said on an anti-death penalty Web site where inmates seek pen pals. "I'm where I'm at because I made an adolescent choice."

Medellin, on death row for almost 14 years, was one of six teenagers arrested and charged with the gang rape and murders of Elizabeth Pena, 16, and Jennifer Ertman, 14. The two Houston girls, returning from a friend's house, took a shortcut home and stumbled on a group of teenagers drinking beer after initiating a new gang member.

Evidence showed the girls were gang raped for more than an hour, then were kicked, beaten and strangled. Their bodies were found four days later.

A tip from the brother of one of the gang members led police to Medellin and the others.

One of the gang members, Derrick O'Brien, was executed last year. The death sentences of two others, Efrain Perez and Raul Villarreal, were commuted to life in prison when the Supreme Court barred executions for those who were 17 at the time of their crimes.

A fourth, Peter Cantu, described by authorities as the ringleader, is on death row but no execution date has been set.

The sixth person convicted, Medellin's brother, Vernancio, was 14 at the time and is serving a 40-year prison term.

In the legal frenzy to save Medellin, the fact that two girls were killed is being lost, said Randy Ertman, father of one of the victims.

"This is not about vengeance. This is not about a deterrent or about closure. It's about the punishment," Ertman said. "Everybody wants me to say closure or vengeance. I'm never going to have closure. It's just a miracle word that's going to make us feel good, but it ain't going to happen."

Mexico, which has no death penalty, initially sued the United States in the World Court in 2003. Mexico and other opponents of capital punishment have sought to use the court to fight for foreigners facing execution in the U.S.

"The law is clear: Texas is bound not by the World Court, but by the U.S. Supreme Court, which reviewed this matter and determined that this convicted murderer's execution shall proceed," said Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the Texas Attorney General's Office.

If executed, Medellin would be the 410th condemned prisoner to die in Texas since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982, far more than any other state. At least six other Mexican nationals are in that total.

http://tinyurl.com/6jq5hh

I am so proud of Texas for holding their ground. The International Court and Mexico's elite have no business sticking their noses in this matter....

Perhaps if they each had a child that was brutally raped and killed with sadistically by a criminal ape illegal like Medellin they would show some compassion and withdraw their objections...

God Bless the Victims and their familes !

Consider me very proud of Texas' stance against this new world order. I know that when things get crazy enough and Mexico decides to take back the southwestern states, Texas will be there.

An adolescent choice!

Quote:
"Evidence showed the girls were gang raped for more than an hour, then were kicked, beaten and strangled. Their bodies were found four days later."

If my brother did this, he wouldn't have to wait in prison to die.
He'd be dead and I'd be in prison! Imagine what those two girls went thru?
I have NO sympathy for gang members. They are just a bunch of useless pieces of sh*t with a mob mentality...
Big boys with pee brains that have no human part left inside them.

http://lonestaralmondcompany.com/ezine/ ... s-flag.gif

whether mexico has a death penalty or not does NOT matter to this case. this animal raped and murdered TWO teens in the United States... penalty... this scum bag, ruled by OUR courts, is set to die. that is called enforcing the law. granted that is a concept mexico has problems with but this is not mexico.

Thank you Texas for not backing down...

WHAT TIME WILL THEY BE EXECUTING MEDELLIN ON TUES? I JUST WANT TO KNOW HOW MANY MORE HOURS HE HAS TO LIVE. ANYONE KNOW?

Originally Posted by butterbean

TUESDAY'S HEADLINE:

TEXAS GETS IT DONE!!!