Time Running Out for Medellin

UPDATE: The Supreme Court at 10:20 p.m. issued a per curiam or unsigned opinion denying Medellin's habeas petition, clearing the way for his imminent execution by Texas. The Court said that the possibility of action by Congress or the Texas legislature to vindicate Medellin's international treaty rights (Medellin is a Mexican national) was "too remote" to stay his death sentence. Four justices dissented, and each one -- John Paul Stevens David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer -- wrote a separate dissent. All four said they would have stayed the execution and sought the views of the solicitor general on the breach of the treaty that Medellin's execution will represent. "Balancing the honor of the nation against the modern burden of a short delay to ensure that the breach is unavoidable convinces me that the application for a stay should be granted," wrote Stevens.

No word yet today from the Supreme Court about the fate of Jose Ernesto Medellin, scheduled for execution tonight in Texas.

Medellin's case has been before the Court twice, most recently this past term. Medellin, a Mexican citizen, claims he was deprived of his rights under an international treaty to seek legal help from the Mexican consulate when he was arrested in Texas connection with a double murder and rape 15 years ago. The International Court of Justice, known as the World Court, and the Bush Administration want Texas to hold a hearing on the consular treaty issue. But the state, backed by the U.S. Supreme Court, say neither the World Court nor Bush can compel Texas to alter its procedural rules. Since the Supreme Court's ruling in March, Texas courts have not budged.

In a filing with the high court Monday, Medellin's lawyer Donald Donovan of Debevoise & Plimpton in New York, says the execution should be stayed to allow Congress to pass legislation that would comply with the World Court order and meet treaty obligations. "Texas is proposing, for the first time in our Nation's history, to proceed with an execution that is undisputedly illegal under a binding international legal obligation of the United States," Donovan asserts. The world, he adds, "will have every reason to question the value" of the United States' commitment to international treaties.

Comments

[Joefucious]

I don't beleive in the death penalty simply on the basis of cost. It is cheaper to keep them alive that deal with all of these appeals.

[Joseph Amato]

September 18, 2008
AMERICAN EXCEPTION
U.S. Court Is Now Guiding Fewer Nations
By ADAM LIPTAK

Reader comment
September 18, 2008
Maturing developed nations in the post warring century and in the new millennium are finding that it is best to guide their national social justice from the energetic professionals that are homegrown and want to express themselves with civil order and legal tenets that are indigenous to their own base.

Since America is way ahead of the multicultural and democratic gains that are not afforded other societies such as for example laws in: The Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany or The Philippines they will want to balance their legal language from their selective array of modern jurisprudence that is more a non-worldly integrated narrative that reaches into the polity.

Really - I would broaden Professors Thomas Ginsburg international legal myopia. I am reminded the famous HBR - Harvard Business Review on Marketing Myopia by Theodore Levitt that was embraced in the later half of our last century that invigorated the educated minds in this suit.

Embracing worldly American jurisprudence is not the goal but having nations find their democratic order that is first and foremost natural to the rights that grow over time.

In the long haul modernity will have laws that are bright lights from the fair and equal justice under laws that will have international solidarity for all the peoples on Earth.

Joseph Amato
Manhattan, NY

[New York CLE]

Now that he was executed it will be interesting to see if there is a look back and what else can come out of this case than already has. The necessary actions were supposedly carried out and the review was done. What do his lawyers do now?

[Greg]

Medillin's stay has been vacated. Scalia referred the Cert petition to the court which denied it 5-4. By the time you read this, the sentence will likely have been executed.

Link here http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/medellin-opinion-8-5-08.pdf

the victims were not granted a stay!

[Kent Scheidegger]

To say that the illegality of proceeding with the execution is undisputed is just plain false. The state contends that Medellin has already had the review that Avena requires. The state trial judge so stated with Donovan in the room, as the transcript in his own supplemental appendix shows.