Texas Accuses Bush(& UN) of Trampling Its Autonomy in Death Penalty Case

[papau]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5441-2005Mar27.html

Texas Accuses Bush(& UN) of Trampling Its Autonomy in Death Penalty Case

By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 28, 2005; Page A02


As a presidential candidate in 2000, then-Gov. George W. Bush had a ready reply for those who would criticize the governance of his state: "Don't mess with Texas."

Yet, five years later, as president, Bush stands accused of doing just that. And the accuser is none other than the State of Texas, which says Bush is attempting to impose on a sovereign state not only his will, but also the will of an international court that has no authority over criminal justice in the United States.

The dispute will be aired today at oral arguments in the Supreme Court in a case that may test just how far the justices are prepared to push their recent interest in using international law as a source of authority for interpreting the U.S. Constitution and U.S. statutes.

"The justices presumably took the case to clarify basic questions about the interface between international, federal and state law," said Lori F. Damrosch, a professor of international law at Columbia University.

At issue in the case, Medellin v. Dretke, No. 04-5928, is the fate of 51 Mexicans who were convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Texas and other states without first having access to diplomats from their home country. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague has ruled that their rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations were violated, and that they are entitled to new hearings in Texas courts to determine whether the violation caused their convictions or sentences.

On Feb. 28, Bush intervened to say, in effect, that he would take care of the case. Citing his constitutional power to set the nation's foreign policy, he issued a "determination" instructing the Texas courts to comply with the ICJ's ruling by holding a hearing for one of the Mexicans, Jose Ernesto Medellin, a Houston gang member convicted in 1994 of raping and murdering two teenage girls in Houston.

Then the president withdrew the United States from the part of the treaty that gives the ICJ enforcement authority, ensuring that, although Medellin and the 50 other Mexicans would be entitled to relief under his Feb. 28 determination, no similar cases could arise at the ICJ again.

Bush took these steps to smooth diplomatic tensions with Mexico and other nations over the death penalty cases, while also appeasing those in his administration who are skeptical of international bodies such as the ICJ, lawyers familiar with the case said.<SNIP>

[fryguy]

1. Wasn't "Don't mess with Texas" an anti-litter slogan?

love how it is now tossed around as some sort of macho chant....

but about this story...heard a commentator on NPR saying that there wouldn't a politician in the US that would be up in arms if it were an American citizen in a foriegn country that had been denied consular rights prior to being convicted and sentenced. not to mention the first time the international court of justice was used it was by the United States against Iran during the hostage crisis.

[papau]

3. True - I recall "cutting off ones nose to spite ones face" as descriptive

of Bush on this.

[napi21]

2. Is this Texas opposition to Shrub wide spread?

So far, most Texans have been willing to overlook everything their dear favorite son has said or done. Is it really true that they are against him on this one?

[papau]

4. this is just talk show folks talking

:-)

[struggle4progress]

5. Texas tops U.S. states in executing foreigners

MICHAEL GRACZYK

Associated Press


HOUSTON - The issue of international law and foreign opposition to the death penalty long has dogged capital punishment in the nation's most active death penalty state.

Six foreign nationals have been executed in Texas, more than any other state, since executions resumed here in 1982. Four of the six claimed Mexican citizenship.

In several of those cases, courts rejected arguments that the offenders at the time of their arrest were denied help from their individual foreign consulates as stipulated under provision of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which the United States has signed.

More than two dozen foreign-born inmates - at least 16 from Mexico - are on Texas death row, including one woman, Linda Carty, a native of the British Virgin Islands. The population is second only to California. <snip>

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/11251845.htm