Murder case pits Texas against Bush

[peejay 327]

Murder case pits Texas against Bush

As U.S. justices consider local killer's consular issue, control of courts is at stake

By PATTY REINERT

2007 Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON — When Jose Medellin was arrested in 1993, he signed a confession detailing how he and five fellow gang members had raped and sodomized two Houston teenagers before strangling them with their shoe laces. He bragged that he had pocketed one girl's Mickey Mouse watch as a souvenir.

Medellin and four others eventually were convicted of capital murder and sent to Texas' death row. A juvenile court sentenced Medellin's younger brother, who was 14 at the time, to 40 years in prison.

This week, Medellin's case makes its second trip to the Supreme Court. The issue now is not his confession to the murders of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peña, but something else he said during his arrest: He informed the police that he is a Mexican citizen. But officers didn't inform him of his right to contact the Mexican Consulate for legal assistance.

That mistake, a violation of a 1963 treaty known as the Vienna Convention, has since sparked an international court battle, bruised relations between the United States and its southern neighbor and ultimately will force the high court to answer a rather large constitutional question:

What authority, if any, does President Bush have to order courts in the state of Texas to do anything about it?

"We find ourselves in an unusual position. Texas is not regularly litigating against the United States," said Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz. "But sadly enough, the United States will appear alongside Medellin at the argument."

Medellin v. Texas, which will be argued on Wednesday and decided by next summer, could determine the fate of Medellin and 50 other Mexican killers on death rows in the United States, including more than a dozen in Texas. They were not informed of their right under the treaty to contact their countrymen when they were arrested.

The case also could affect the treatment of an estimated 6,000 U.S. citizens accused of crimes each year while traveling or living abroad. They, too, are protected by the treaty.

More significantly to most Americans, though, the justices are expected to produce a major ruling clarifying what powers reside with the president, Congress and courts, what powers belong to the federal government versus the states, and what the relationship is between international and domestic law.

A presidential order

The Bush administration became involved in the Medellin case in 2003 when Mexico sued the U.S. over the consular issue in the International Court of Justice at The Hague. The so-called "World Court" is the United Nations' top court for resolving international disputes.

The court ruled in Mexico's favor in late 2004 and ordered the United States to reconsider the Mexican inmates' murder convictions and death sentences. In February 2005, Bush announced that while he disagreed with the World Court's decision, the U.S. would comply, and he declared how: He would order courts in Texas and elsewhere to review the cases.

A few days later, however, the president withdrew the United States from the part of the Vienna Convention that gives the World Court final say in international disputes.

The Supreme Court, which had agreed to hear Medellin's case, dismissed it later in 2005 to allow the case to play out in Texas. Last November, the all-Republican Texas Court of Criminal Appeals balked at the Republican president's order, saying Bush had overstepped his authority.

The Texas court said the judicial branch, not the White House, should decide how to resolve the Mexican cases. It also said Medellin wasn't entitled to a new hearing because he failed to complain at his original trial about any violation of his consular rights and had therefore waived them.

Medellin appealed again to the U.S. Supreme Court, which announced last May that it would hear his case. His lawyer, Donald Donovan of New York, will argue this week that Bush was correct when he took action to comply with the World Court's decision.

In addition, Donovan said that, independent of Bush's order, the Texas court has its own obligation under the U.S. Constitution to do its part to abide by international treaties.

The Bush administration, now siding with Medellin and Mexico, will try to help Donovan's team convince the justices that the Texas court is undermining the president's efforts to conduct foreign policy.

Setting a precedent?

Cruz, who will argue the case for Texas, called Bush's unprecedented attempt to issue orders to the judicial branch — and the state courts in particular — "breathtaking."

"It is emphatically not the province of the president to say what the law is," he said. "If this president's assertion of authority is upheld in this case, it opens the door for enormous mischief from presidents of either party. What might these presidents be inclined to do if they had the power to flick state laws off the books?"

Meanwhile, Randy and Sandra Ertman, the parents of one of Medellin's victims, also have weighed in. In a court brief filed on their behalf by the California-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, the Ertmans argue that their 14-year-old daughter's rights, and the rights of other victims, will be given short shrift if the justices further delay the "already long-overdue execution of this well-deserved sentence."

"This case has produced much lofty discussion about international law and the separation of powers. We must not forget, though, that this case is about a real crime against real people," they wrote. "Enough is enough."

OTHER DEFENDANTS

Besides Jose Medellin, the five others involved in the 1993 rape-murder of Houston teenagers Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peña were:

• Derrick Sean O'Brien: Executed in 2006

• Peter Cantu: Awaiting execution, no date set

• Efrain Perez, Raul Villarreal: Sentences commuted to life in 2005 after Supreme Court outlawed executions for those under 18 at the time of their crimes

• Venancio Medellin: The younger brother of Jose Medellin, who was 14 at the time and pleaded guilty in juvenile court, is serving a 40-year sentence

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/5195637.html

[Jasman0717 9]

Come on Texas, do your duty I don't care what agreements there are, when some pervert murders children they deserve the justice that Texas has been famous for over the past several years.