Justices to Hear Case of Mexican on Death Row---we are too eager to

[rodeodance]

execute people in this country!!
We spend millions on the Laci Peterson case an pennies on all 'others' combined!!


"http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/11/national/11scotus.html?th=&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position="

December 11, 2004

Justices to Hear Case of Mexican on Death Row

By LINDA GREENHOUSE

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 - The Supreme Court accepted an appeal on Friday from still another Texas death-row inmate in a case with significant international implications. The question is whether the federal government can permit Texas to execute a Mexican whose rights under a binding international treaty were violated when he was tried and sentenced to death without Mexican officials being notified.

On March 31, the International Court of Justice ordered the United States to undertake "an effective review" of the convictions and sentences of the inmate, José Ernesto Medellín, and 50 other Mexicans under death sentences in nine states. The court, usually known as the World Court, ruled that all 51 had been deprived of their right under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations to meet with Mexican government representatives.

Mr. Medellín's lawyers raised this issue on his behalf as early as his appeal in the Texas state courts in 1998. But that was not early enough, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in May when it responded to the World Court decision by rejecting Mr. Medellín's request for a writ of habeas corpus. The appeals court ruled that he could obtain no relief on the basis of the consular treaty because, by failing to raise it at his murder trial in 1994 he was procedurally barred from raising it in federal court.

At his 1994 trial for a gang-related murder, Mr. Medellín, an indigent 18-year-old, was given a court-appointed lawyer who called no witnesses. Unknown to the trial judge at the time, Mr. Medellín's lawyer had been suspended from law practice for ethical violations. At the penalty phase of the trial, which lasted two hours, the lawyer put on only one expert witness, a psychologist who had never met Mr. Medellín.......

[Laelth]

1. Should be an easy decision for the court ...

They better say, "Heck no." Treaties are binding on the courts as law. If the government in Texas blew it, it's a no brainer. The guy walks.

Of course, there may be other details of the case I'm not aware of, but this would be my first-glance analysis.

-Laelth