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Texas Accused of Violating International Treaty by Executing Mexican National
By Lily Garza
August 19, 2008
A much debated case was finally put to rest last Tuesday when the state of Texas executed Mexican citizen, Jose Medellin. The man, convicted for his part in the gang rape and murder of two teenage girls in 1993, had appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to block his execution but was not successful.
Medellin claimed that after his arrest, he was not informed of his right to consult the Mexican Consulate for legal help. A treaty signed at the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations guarantees anyone accused of a crime in a foreign country the right to seek legal advice from his/her own nation’s Consulate. The treaty is part of a series of legal documents originating in the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court.
The Bush administration advised the Supreme Court and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles that Medellin’s case should be reviewed to avoid violating international law. However, Texas refused to reopen the case and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene.
Testimony from Medellin’s original trial shows that he was the first of six gang members to attack 16-year- old Elizabeth Pena and 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman. The men had been drinking and intercepted the girls as they were walking home. The girls were beaten and raped for over an hour before being strangled the death and left in a Houston-area field. Their bodies were found four days later. Medellin was the second of the convicted men to be executed. The first was executed in 2006, and a third man is awaiting execution but no date has been set. The three other men convicted of the crimes were under age 17 at the time the crime was committed so two are serving life sentences and the sixth, who was only 14 then, is serving a 40-year sentence.
The Texas Attorney General’s office insisted that the execution does not violate the treaty and noted that the Supreme Court Justices have ruled in the past that World Court decisions are not U.S. law and therefore not binding in American courts. Sources also point out that in Medellin’s filings with the Supreme Court, his crime is not even mentioned and his lawyers have been criticized for using a loophole as a last-ditch effort to free a convicted man.
Mark Vinson, the former Harris County Assistant District Attorney who prosecuted the case, said that the issue was not even raised before or during the trial. He insists that if the issue had been raised at the time his office would have complied. But Medellin’s lawyers did not mention the possible treaty violation until only a year ago, during appeals.
There are currently over 50 other Mexican nationals on death row around the country and President Bush has asked that all these cases be reviewed to ensure that the treaty was not violated on any other occasion.
Mexico originally sued the United States in the World Court in 2003, along with several other nations that oppose capital punishment. Those actions were unsuccessful. At least six other Mexican Nationals have been executed since 1982, when Texas reinstated the death penalty.
Protests were held outside that U.S. Embassy in Mexico on the day of the execution. Because the United Nations supported Medellin’s claims, speculation has risen about the ramifications of the view that the U.S. has now violated international law. If the U.S. no longer honors the treaty, other nations could refuse American citizens the right to consult the U.S. consulate when accused of crimes while abroad.
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