Thread: TX adamant Medellin should die for Houston slayings | Elizabeth Pena, Jennifer Ertman

Texas adamant Medellin should die for Houston slayings
By MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press
Aug. 1, 2008, 2:12PM
300Comments Texas officials remained adamant that a convicted killer in a gruesome gang rape-slaying in Houston should be executed next week despite an international court's ruling he should be entitled to additional legal reviews because he's a Mexican citizen.

Lawyers for Jose Medellin, four months after losing his case at the U.S. Supreme Court, returned to the high court today seeking a last-minute reprieve.

Medellin is set to die Tuesday in Huntville for his participation in the 1993 gang rape and beating deaths of two Houston girls, Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16. Medellin's lawyers want the justices to block his lethal injection until Texas grants him a new hearing to comply with a ruling from the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court.

The state has so far refused.

"We don't care where you're from," Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry, said today. "If you commit a despicable crime like this in Texas, you'll face the ultimate penalty under our laws."

The Supreme Court ruled in March that neither President Bush nor the international court can force Texas' hand.

"The truth is, Texas is not bound by a foreign court's ruling," Castle said.

Medellin says Congress or the Texas Legislature, which doesn't meet again until January, should be given a chance to pass a law ordering a new hearing before he can be executed.

Four Democratic lawmakers have introduced such a bill in Congress, but it probably won't be acted upon this year.

Medellin is one of roughly 50 Mexicans on death rows around the nation, including about a dozen in Texas, who contend they were denied prompt access to their country's consular officials after being arrested in the United States. The access is guaranteed by international treaty.

On Thursday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, rejected similar arguments from Medellin, who was 18 when the two girls were killed.

In a concurring opinion to the court's ruling, Judge Cathy Cochran said Medellin, who was brought to the United States when he was 3, indeed was a Mexican citizen. But she said he had lived in the U.S. for 15 of his 18 years and spoke fluent English while he never obtained or sought American citizenship.

"His claim is that no one informed him of his right to contact the Mexican consulate," she wrote. "This is true. It also is true that he was never denied access to the Mexican consulate.

"The problem is that he apparently never told any law enforcement or judicial official that he was a Mexican citizen until some four years after his conviction."

Cochran said while Texas authorities "clearly failed in their duty" to inform Medellin of his rights under the Vienna Convention, "this foreign national equally failed in his duty to inform those authorities that he was a Mexican citizen."

In 2004, the World Court said the prisoners should have new court hearings to determine whether the absence of contact with consular officials affected the cases. Bush, while saying he disagreed with the ruling, nevertheless said the United States was obligated by treaty to comply with it and ordered the states to follow suit.

Texas refused, which is how Medellin's case initially ended up before the Supreme Court.

Bush was in the unusual position of siding with the death row inmate against the state he served as governor, and after having overseen 152 executions in Texas.

The World Court last month ordered U.S. authorities to do everything possible to halt executions scheduled in Texas of Medellin and four other Mexicans until their cases are reviewed. The Bush administration has said it expected the World Court's order to have little impact.

Evidence showed the girls were gang raped for more than an hour, then were kicked and beaten before being strangled.

Four days later, the girls' bodies were found, decomposing and mummifying in 100-degree heat. A tip from the brother of one of the gang members led police to arrest Medellin and his companions.

Two of the gang members, Efrain Perez and Raul Villarreal, had their death sentences commuted to life in prison when the Supreme Court barred executions for those who were 17 at the time of their crimes.

One of the gang, Derrick O'Brien, was executed last year. O'Brien said Medellin was at one end of a belt being pulled around Ertman's neck as he yanked on the other. Peter Cantu, described by authorities as ringleader of the gang, remains on death row without an execution date.

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


Associated Press reporter Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this story.
Yes he will DIE....
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5919299.html

Hang in there Texas...go for what you know is right....that animal deserves to be hung!

This monster needs to pay, and dearly. I could not imagine what
these parents are going through.
This monster will the easy way, not like what he did to those little
girls, let the parents have him for 15 minutes.


SOB, needs the electric chair, and let the parents pull the switch.



KOOBSTER

Good for Texas!!! And make sure the Mexican media is there for the execution of one their precious citizens.

His execution should be televised to show what will happen to illegal aliens who kill our citizens! If it makes one think twice about committing the crimes, it'll be well worth it.

As the aying goes: Don't Mess With Texas!!!

Better yet, televise it live to all of Mexico, and South America, and make sure it is a very slow, and painful, death.

I CANT WAIT TILL TUESDAY!
this parasite needs to die for his crimes.
im spending too much in tax money on the scumbag to remain alive

Moving to Americans Killed by Illegals forum.