Death row case of Mexican citizen pits Bush against Texas.

President Bush and Texas, the state that he once led, were on opposite sides of a Supreme Court over the role of International law in the case of Mexican on death row for rape and murder. The article was posted on The Dallas Morning News last Thursday, October 11, 2007. Throughout the article, they emphasized that neither the president nor The International Court could involve in hoe Texas treats its criminal defendants. The story started from the case of Mr. Medellin, who was arrested a few days after being accused of murder and sexual assault two victims, Jennifer Ertman 14 and Elizabeth Pena 16. A judge sentenced him to death in October 1994. One of the biggest problems is that Mr. Medellin was not notified that he could ask for help from Mexican diplomats. Moreover, U.S compromised at Vienna Convention 1963 “which provides that people arrested abroad should have access to their home country’s consular officials.” As the result, in 2003, Mexico sued U.S in the International Court of Justice for violating the law. Mr. Medellin’s attorney said: “the court could rely either on the international court ruling or the president’s determination.” After going over the case, Mr. Bush disagreed with the decision which makes Texas response strongly that “the international court ruling has no weight in Texas and that Mr. Bush has no power to order its enforcement.” I think that this is a really urgent and serious topic that our government needs to solve as soon as possible because it related with another country. However, I definitely on Texas side this time. One of the most important reasons is that “Mexico has no death penalty,” so even though we return Mr. Medellin to his country, justice was still not served as our state argued: “the diplomat’s intercession would not have made any difference in the outcome of the case. On the other hand, Medellin is a completely dangerous and cold- hearted criminal who needs to be punished properly. Two young lives were taken away from this man, and the price he had to pay was imprisoned in his country? That is definitely inequitable. If we agree to yield Mexico, the percentage of crime will increase due to the law. I hope that our president, Mr. Bush, the International as well as the state governor could straight this situation before it is too late.


http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/dmn/stories/101107dnnattxdeathrow.1587ebcf7.html