It's U.S. versus Texas in death penalty case

Supreme Court to rule whether international treaty trumps state law.


By his own admission, the crime was savage. Jose Medellin and five other gang members were drinking, brawling, swaggering, talking smack and hanging out by the railroad tracks near a Houston apartment complex on a warm night in June 1993. Along came two girls, Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16, taking a shortcut home from a friend's house.

Medellin stopped Pena. When she tried to run, he threw her to the ground. Ertman ran to help her but also was shoved to the ground. They were gang-raped and beaten. Even as the girls begged for their lives, they were dragged to nearby woods and strangled, one with her own shoelace, the other with a belt and then by a shoe pressed on her windpipe. Their bodies were found four days later.

Medellin had no regrets. He bragged about the crime to his cousin and gave one of the girl's rings to his girlfriend. His brother kept Ertman's Disney-brand Goofy watch as a trophy.

It didn't take long for police to catch Medellin. Once they did, he confessed. Nor did it take long for the jury to return a verdict: Guilty. And Texas-style justice means death for a crime like his.

For the past 13 years, Medellin has been on Death Row in Texas. Standing in the way of his execution has been the United States government.

The government of Mexico forced the U.S. stance. After Medellin was convicted, Mexico brought suit in the International Court of Justice, the judicial body of the United Nations, charging that the U.S. had violated the Vienna Convention. That treaty requires that foreign nationals arrested in a signatory country be allowed to meet with a consular official from their home country. It's a tool treasured by diplomats worldwide. The U.S. once brought an action in the same court against Iran after the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was seized in 1979.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-scotus_oliphantoct08,1,1956213.story


(Bill O'Reilly will have this story on his show tonight)