http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/us/18 ... ref=slogin

Texas Turns Aside Pressure on Execution of 5 Mexicans 
Ricardo Guzman/European Pressphoto Agency
Eleuteria Armendariz Perales, grandmother of José Ernesto MedellÃ*n. He is scheduled to be put to death in Texas on Aug. 5.
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By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: July 18, 2008
HOUSTON — Despite pleas from the White House and the State Department, as well as an international court order to review their cases, Texas will execute five Mexicans on death row, a spokeswoman for the governor said Thursday.

The first of the executions — that of José Ernesto MedellÃ*n, 33, convicted in the 1993 rape and murder of two teenage girls here — is scheduled for Aug. 5.

The decision by Gov. Rick Perry to allow the executions is the latest twist in a long-running battle between Mexico, which has no death penalty, and the United States over the fate of 51 Mexicans facing capital punishment in several states, including 14 in Texas.

On Wednesday, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ordered a review of five of the Texas cases after Mexico complained that the convicts, all men, had not been allowed a chance to talk to a Mexican consul after their arrests, as required under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

But that argument holds little sway in Texas, a place with a long history of upholding the death penalty and of telling other governments to mind their own business.

“This ruling doesn’t change anything,â€