U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Bush, In Favor Of States In Death Row Case Of Mexican National

Washington, DC (AHN)-In a 6-3 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas and other states do not have to grant new hearings to Mexican nationals convicted of murder and serving time on death row.

The ruling, which surprisingly pits the Bush administration against the President's home state of Texas, holds that Jose Ernesto Medellin and some 51 other Mexican nationals were not deprived of their rights and thus not entitled to a new hearing, despite a 2004 decision by the International Court of Justice ordering the cases to be reconsidered.

In the case of Medellin v. Texas, 18-year-old Jose Ernesto Medellin was convicted for his role in the 1993 gang rape and murder of two teen-age girls in Houston and sentenced to death. However, lawyers for Medellin argued that the defendant was not informed of his right to contact Mexican consular officials after his arrest, thus entitling him to a new hearing on the case.

Despite President Bush petitioning on behalf of Medellin, along with a number of foreign governments including Mexico and the European Union, Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito joined Chief Justice Roberts's opinion that treaties signed by the U.S. did not obligate the country's state courts to comply with the World Court's judgment.

In his opinion, Chief Justice Roberts said, "none of these treaty sources creates binding federal law in the absence of implementing legislation,'' adding that, "The responsibility for transforming an international obligation arising from a non-self-executing treaty into domestic law falls to Congress."

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented in the case, saying the ruling means "the nation may well break its word even though the president seeks to live up to that word and Congress has done nothing to suggest the contrary."