Date Set for Medellin Execution

A Houston judge today set Aug. 5 as the date for the state of Texas to execute Mexican national Jose Medellin, whose case has been before the U.S. Supreme Court twice.

Lawyers for Medellin, with the support of human rights groups, the International Court of Justice, and the Bush administration, had sought a new hearing on his case. After Medellin was arrested for murder in 1993, Texas law enforcement officials failed to notify him of his treaty right under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations to seek the legal assistance of the Mexican consul.

The Supreme Court in March ruled that the International Court of Justice's judgment in the case of Medellin and 49 other aliens was not enforceable against states as domestic law, setting the stage for Texas to proceed with the execution.

After the judge's action today, Sandra Babcock, one of Medellin's lawyers, said in a telephone news conference that if the execution proceeds, it will be "an irreversible breach" of the Vienna consular rights treaty that will "jeopardize countless Americans." She explained that other countries, seeing that the United States has ignored Medellin's rights under the treaty, may not give the same right to Americans arrested abroad. She and Donald Donovan, who argued for Medellin before the Supreme Court, said Congress could avert this danger by passing legislation to enforce the treaty through federal courts.