Supreme Court To Consider Case Pitting Bush Against Texas In Death Row Case

Washington, DC (AHN) - On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case that pits President Bush, former governor of Texas who signed 152 execution orders, against his home state that wants to execute a Mexican for the brutal murder of two teenage girls.

Bush wants to halt the execution of Mexican Jose Ernesto Medellin convicted of raping and killing two girls, aged 14 and 15. Medellin was 18 when he, along with other members of a gang, caught, raped and killed the teens as they were walking home in 1993.

Although he had spent most of his life in America, Medellin had been born in Mexico, which means that under international law he should have had access to his country's diplomats when he was arrested. However, when Medellin was arrested, police only told him that he had a right to be silent or have an attorney; they did not tell him he had a right to contact the Mexican consulate for help under a 1963 treaty.

Mexico has no death penalty and in 2003 brought suit against the United States in international court in the Hague in Medellin's case and 50 other Mexican nationals on death row. The court ruled for Mexico in 2004, saying the convictions should be reviewed in U.S. courts.

Saying that the execution would harm American interests, Bush has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to agree that as president he has the power to put ignore a state law that conflicts with international law. However, he has also said that if the Supreme Court sides with him on this issue and later makes similar decisions affecting state laws that he plans to ignore them.

"The president does not agree with the ICJ's interpretation of the Vienna Convention," the administration said in arguments filed with the court, adding that the U.S. agreed this time to abide by the international court's decision because ignoring it would harm American interests abroad, the government said, according to Associated Press reports.

However, the Texas solicitor general, Ted Cruz, has a problem with Bush's position of overturning Medellin's execution.

Cruz was quoted by the AP as saying that the administration's position would "allow the president to set aside any state law the president believes is inconvenient to international comity."

But Cruz, who served as a key adviser on Bush's 2000 election campaign, was more blunt in criticizing Bush for overstepping his authority in a speech to a conservative legal group in Washington.

"This president's exercise of this power is egregiously beyond the bounds of presidential authority," Cruz was quoted as saying by the Guardian Unlimited.

Although the White House had criticized the ICJ decision, in 2005, it had ordered the Texas courts to allow Medellin's habeas corpus claim challenging his conviction. Cruz said it was the first time the U.S. gave a foreign tribunal power over the American justice system.