Wednesday
Aug062008
The Execution of José Medellin
Wednesday, August 6, 2008 at 12:08AM
Tonight Texas put José Medellin to death. Medellin, a Mexican national, was arrested in 1993 and charged with the rape and murder of two 14- and 16-year-old girls. Normally a foreign national would at this point be given an opportunity to speak with his home country's consulate, pursuant to the Vienna Convention, but Medellin was never informed of this right. Instead, he was convicted and sentenced to death. Only then did he learn of his Vienna Convention rights. He took his case to the International Court of Justice, who ruled that Texas should reconsider his case and that of 50 other Mexican nationals on death row. Texas refused, even though the Bush administration ordered it to reconsider.
That's right: even the death-penalty-friendly, international-law-ignoring Bush administration disagreed with Texas on this one.
Medellin took his case to the Supreme Court, asking it to enforce the ICJ's decision. On March 25 of this year, the Supreme Court refused, saying that Congress hadn't passed legislation making ICJ rulings binding on states. In July of this year, Congressman Berman (D-Calif.) introduced a bill that would have allowed people to go to court to have their Vienna Convention rights enforced. It never even got a committee hearing.
Last week and today, Medellin's lawyers asked the Supreme Court to issue an emergency stay of execution. Normally the Supreme Court summarily rejects these requests, but tonight it issued an unsigned opinion saying Congress and the Department of Justice had had a chance to act and didn't, so the execution could continue. Four Justices (Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer) wrote dissents. Justice Stevens's dissent is particularly notable, since he had agreed with the majority of the Court when they heard the case. In his dissent tonight, Stevens wrote that there are serious foreign policy implications of this action, so he'd like to delay the execution and hear the federal government's opinion on that. Justices Souter and Ginsburg said largely the same thing, and Justice Breyer wrote a longer dissent, giving 6 other reasons the execution should be delayed.
According to the Houston Chronicle, "Medellin was pronounced dead at 9:57 p.m. [Central time], nine minutes after the lethal dose was administered."
That's right: even the death-penalty-friendly, international-law-ignoring Bush administration disagreed with Texas on this one.
Medellin took his case to the Supreme Court, asking it to enforce the ICJ's decision. On March 25 of this year, the Supreme Court refused, saying that Congress hadn't passed legislation making ICJ rulings binding on states. In July of this year, Congressman Berman (D-Calif.) introduced a bill that would have allowed people to go to court to have their Vienna Convention rights enforced. It never even got a committee hearing.
Last week and today, Medellin's lawyers asked the Supreme Court to issue an emergency stay of execution. Normally the Supreme Court summarily rejects these requests, but tonight it issued an unsigned opinion saying Congress and the Department of Justice had had a chance to act and didn't, so the execution could continue. Four Justices (Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer) wrote dissents. Justice Stevens's dissent is particularly notable, since he had agreed with the majority of the Court when they heard the case. In his dissent tonight, Stevens wrote that there are serious foreign policy implications of this action, so he'd like to delay the execution and hear the federal government's opinion on that. Justices Souter and Ginsburg said largely the same thing, and Justice Breyer wrote a longer dissent, giving 6 other reasons the execution should be delayed.
According to the Houston Chronicle, "Medellin was pronounced dead at 9:57 p.m. [Central time], nine minutes after the lethal dose was administered."
Reader Comments (12)
Good riddance to bad rubbish
Actually, Jay, Medellin, an illegal alien never informed the US authorities that he was a Mexican national. They had no way of knowing that he was, as he had been in the US illegally since childhood, and spoke with no accent. Imagine that, now had they automatically assumed he was a Mexican national, would that have been what you'd call "racial profiling"? Nor did Medellin inform his attorney that he was a Mexican national. He never brought it up until after he had been convicted, four years after he had been charged.
Amazing about the Vienna Convention, it also is supposed to prevent a foreign government from interfering with the sovreignty of other nations, but Mexico tries almost monthly to interfere with the sovreignty of the US.
Now, George Bush also sided with the world court, because he is tied to the corrupt Mexican, as well as the corrupt Canadian government. But I suppose to your rationale, as long as it's innocent Americans like those two little girls getting violently raped and slaughtered, you will give the same George W. Bush who lied us into war, the benefit of the doubt, so he can rationalize the status quo in Mexico, aand impose it here. In that you and the Shrub are interested in the same outcome.
You conveniently (for you) do not delve into the facts of Medellin's criminal acts, and he admitted to them. He and his fellow vile thugs saw these two young girls, one 14, one 16, and as they were bored with beating each other up, decided to attack them. They gang raped them, in every way scum like you can imagine. On one occasion, when Medellin wasn't raping, he stepped on the throat of one of the girls and make crude jokes. After that, they strangled them with belts and shoelaces. Medellin made further jokes about how a gun would have been quicker. Any decent, compassionate person who actually does believe in human rights, would attempt to understand how horrifying it was for those two young girls, how frightened and powerless they felt. They were slaughtered and their bodies dumped. Medellin went off and partied with his friends, bragging about what he had done.
The families of those two young girls, have lived with those awful facts all these years, and they will continue to be haunted by thoughts of what their dear young daughters went through for the rest of their lives. I'm not normally a supporter of the death penalty, but in cases like this, I can well understand why it is supported.
People like you make a mockery out of tragedies like this. There is no human compassion or understanding in what you wrote. Your sort only serves to vent your hatred, and blame the victims, you also encourage those like Medellin into believing they are somehow entitled to harm, slaughter and oppress others, and to get away with it. You encourage others to attempt the same.
While I despise George Bush, I despise those extremists like you, because you are the same as George W. Bush, you are both in advocacy for the same ultimate ends.
Don't you feel any shame for printing something with this many distortions of the truth?
May the scum and anyone who supports his case burn in hell. One less Mexican criminal scum is in our country.. and on planet Earth. He should have been executed Mafia style- penis and testicles cut off, shoved down his throat, praying to be killed with a bullet before the race between suffocation on his own genitals or bleeding to death finished. Those poor little girls..he showed no mercy.. may he burn in agony forever...Screw the world court and liberal assholes.. and the POTUS. don't mess with Texas
he is in HELL right now. burning, burning, burning burning in non-comsuming fire in endless agony for ETERNITY. the other worthless trash that participated in the crimes but had sentences commuted may not die by the hand of the justice, but at the end of their lives, they will share the same fate as medellin
a=hole's body should be fed to cockroaches
Poor thing. Mr. Medellin should know better and should have read up on the rules before he brutally raped and murdered the innocent. 15 years since the crime is a lot of air to waste on this leper on society.
I moved to Houston shortly before these murders took place and will never forget how shocked I was at the heinous acts of these cowards. My daughter's name is Jennifer and I recall wondering how a parent could ever cope with such tragedy.
Two years ago my own Jennifer was murdered, and like these victims, her body was left in the woods by her killer.
I strongly support the death penalty but did not want such a sentence for the murderer of my daughter. I feel that time spent in prison is a harsher penalty than death. Execution is quick and painless.
Worse yet, the apologists come out of the woodwork, making these punks the poster child for their cause. I didn't want a candlelight vigil for my daughter's killer.
Unfortunately we no longer can have faith that "life without parole" carries any weight or meaning. Just this year Haley Barbour, governor of Mississippi, has pardoned FIVE murderers with no consideration given to the victims' families. So, what to do when you can't rely on the court system to punish a killer?
I believe that ultimately the decision should be left up to the victims' families. Nobody else should be in the position to grant forgiveness; they are the ones that have to live without their loved ones.
I hope that the execution of this coward will give some sense of closure to the friends and families of Elizabeth Pena and Jennifer Ertman; you are in my thoughts and prayers.
Drew Crecente
Executive Director, Jennifer Ann's Group
http://www.JenniferAnn.org
STOP Teen Dating Violence
Say, Jay. What planet do you live on anyway? Mexico can't even provide the citizens within their own borders a proper education, a government free from corruption, decent plumbing, safe produce, or sufficient reason to stay in their own country. WTF are you thinking? How the HELL could they actually have helped this stain on humanity? They can't even help themselves! This has got to be a joke, right? P.S. Did his victims get to confer with counsel before being executed? NO!!!!!
My only regret is the comfy method of his execution. And this is after he got 19 more years of life than his younger victim. He should have been thrown into a tiger cage. Someone has to get rid of that 'cruel and unusual punishment' crap in our constitution.
Jay, you are part of the problem.
Here ya go, Jay. Here's the lowlife you defend. I guess birds of a feather flock together and all that.
http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:f3_wgBgnYqAJ:www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/unpub/05/05-70006.0.wpd.pdf+Jennifer+Ertman&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us
I see 99% of us are on the same page- we are glad he's dead! They should have fryed him a long time ago. He took away the lives of 2 innocent women and I believe "an eye for an eye"- this scum deserved to die! One less illegal polluting our country! Way to go Texas- thank you for doing what's right! Can we please stop feeling sorry for guilty parasites that mooch off of our system??
I'm not feeling any sympathy for these animals either, however, I'm grateful that people care about preserving justice so that the wrongly accused innocent have their rights protected when mistakes are made.
omg im tired of all of this killing may he burn in eternal hell and all who support this kind of killing and raping. he should of gotten the death penalty a long time ago because those were just two poor inocent little 14 yr olds who cant even walk outside their own home. and those two little 14 yr olds had to die over it shame shame shame this is really messed up and im glad most of us understand this!!!