Supreme Court to hear death penalty case of Mexican national

Dallas Morning News ^ | 12/10/04 | ALLEN PUSEY

[Pikamax]

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The U.S. Supreme Court invited world opinion into its consideration of capital punishment Friday, accepting the case of a Mexican national sentenced to death in Texas for his part in the rape and murder of two teenage girls.

[TFine80]

Not informing Mexico? I thought we're not allowed to ask for any ID, Vicente. How are we supposed to know?

[goldstategop]

If the SCOTUS gives Mexico and France a veto over our criminal justice system in defiance of our Constitution, its time to impeach the Gang Of Nine.

[skip_intro]

The Mexican government would have provided a more competent defense had it known of the case, she added.

Nothing's too good for Mexico's illegal aliens, as long as they're not in Mexico.

[TFine80]

Did you read Scalia's opinion on the sodomy case?

He was really pissed that the majority kept refering to international precedent. And Breyer and Souter and Ginsburg have been prancing about talking about international law at a bunch of conferences and international court exchanges.

It is very frightening to think that this case might be their opportunity to give legal standing to these international rulings.

[goldstategop]

Yep. In other words, to hell with a majority of Americans want. What the liberal global elites say, goes.

[26lemoncharlie]

What the Hell is this World COurt doing sticking their European stinking noses into whats going on in this Country? What juristiction do these asses have here. Whay is the Supremem Court of the US even listening to them. Have our representatives agreed to give up our US LAWS amd Legal practices to an International Court? Has anyone here heard of or been informed of an agreement that make us libel in some way to this International Court?

We need to make sure that our Senators and Representatives know and understand that we will never agree to this type of an arangement and that if they have agreed to or entered into any contract that would bring any US Citizen or this country under the Jurisdiction of any other Court other than the US Courts it is null and void. We cannot allow this to happen or our Citizenship in a Constitutional Republic will be no more.

The Dimms and the Republicans just won't hear the American People, we have no place else to go for representation in Congress: Let's see, elections 2006,

Constitutional Party,
http://www.constitutionparty.com/

America First Party,
http://www.americafirstparty.org/

Independant American Party
http://www.usiap.org/

The American Party
http://www.theamericanparty.org/

[antiunion person]

I think we should close our borders, north and south. I think we should send forces into Mexico to extradite all the murderers and bring them back to Texas where the meaning of death means something. Don't allow anyone to bring the murderers to California where death row inmates die from old age and diseases before they are put to death.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Not informing Mexico? I thought we're not allowed to ask for any ID, Vicente. How are we supposed to know?

Boy, you nailed it!

[FITZ]

And in Vicente Fox's eyes, young girls' lives can just be snuffed out. Not much a crime in his mind which is why he has done nothing about the situation in Ciudad Juarez.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/borderdeath/

Murder in Juárez

More than 320 girls and women have been killed in Juárez in the past nine years. Mexican and U.S. criminologists speculate that as many as 90 of those were victims of one or more serial killers.


Rodriguez
The serial victims bore similar traits. They were young and slender and had brown complexions and long hair. All came from poor families, and many were lured to Juárez by job prospects at maquiladoras. Their poverty, experts say, made them vulnerable.

Many of them were raped and mutilated, their bodies dumped in ditches or vacant lots.

And some more recent murders:

http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/

December 8, 2004
Ciudad Juárez Femicides: More Deaths and Law Enforcement Officials Investigated

Cinthia Irasema Ramos' dream was to become a nurse, her father said at her funeral. Found dead on a sidewalk in central Ciudad Juárez on December 3, 2004, the 21 year old woman's life was cut short near the bar where she worked. Police have yet to make an arrest in the case although family member's believe Ramos' boyfriend may have been involved.

On November 2, 2004, Martha Lizbeth Hernández, age 16, was murdered and raped . José Luis Montes, a carpenter, confessed to the crimes saying that he was drunk and had been using cocaine prior to killing Hernández.

Montes was spotted by city police while allegedly raping Hernández who he had apparently already choked to death. He tried to flee the scene but was apprehended by police.

In between these killings another body was found on November 25 in the outskirts of Cd. Juárez, according to an article in the Dallas Morning News.

Law Enforcement Investigated

The federal investigation of the Cd. Juárez femicides led by María López Urbina has been criticized as "garbage" by organizations that represent victims' families, particularly because the investigation has not led to any new arrests. However, another part of the investigation is aimed at identifying state law enforcement officials that were negligent in properly investigating the crimes. One of those Chihuahua officials named by López's investigation is Zulema Bolívar García who was the special investigator into the femicides between July 2001 and March 2002.

In mid-November 2004 Bolívar testified to López's investigation that in November 2001 it was the Chihuahua Attorney General and the Assistant Attorney General at that time, Arturo González Rascón and José Manuel Ortega Aceves, that steered her investigation of the eight bodies that were found in a Cd. Juárez cotton field in that month. Bolívar also stated that it was Ortega Aceves who framed two bus drivers for the crime, Javier García Uribe and Gustavo González Meza.

And of course the today's killing of a young woman:

http://www.diario.com.mx/nota.asp?notaid=fb546f8fc47d68b7c93c728001da6bb3

Armando Rodríguez
EL DIARIO
La madrugada de este viernes nuevamente fue encontrada otra mujer asesinada, aparentemente a puñaladas y abandonada en el interior de su domicilio por varios días antes de que alguien se diera cuenta de su estado.

El macabro hallazgo tuvo lugar a las tres de la mañana de este viernes, cuando varias compañeras de trabajo acudieron a buscar a Flor Fabiola Ferrer Trujillo, de 19 años, quien laboraba junto a ellas como mesera en el bar Chapulín Colorado, lugar al que tenía días de no acudir.

El cuerpo de la hoy occisa se encontró en su domicilio de la calle Rafael Torres Quintero 6117, en el Infonavit Casas Grandes y aunque en un principio se creyó que Fabiola habeia fallecido por intoxicación con monóxido de carbono, ya que el calentón se encontraba encendido y no respondía al llamado de sus compañeras, las autoridades confirmaron horas después que se trato de un homicidio.

Al lugar acudieron autoridades pertenecientes a las tres esferas de gobierno, pero poco fue lo que se dispusieron a revelar del nuevo crimen.

Extraoficialmente una fuente informó que la mujer murió por haber sido atacada con un objeto punzocortante, aunque no se especificaron más detalles en cuanto al tipo de arma, número de laceraciones o el móvil del delito.

Con este son ya dos los cuerpos de mujeres asesinadas que se encuentran en menos de una semana, y, coincidentemente, las dos occisas laboraban en bares de la ciudad.

----- It's a bit interesting that Vicente Fox shows far more concern for those Mexicans in the death penalty here than he shows for all the murdered women and girls in his own country. He's shown no concern at all of course.

[COEXERJ145]

5-4 decision in favor of Mexico. It will be Souter, Stevens, Breyer, and Ms. "International Law" O'Connor.

[skip_intro]

Obviously, Vincente's solution is to have all the rapists and murders move north. Then he can complain about how they're treated here.

[RonF]

When the United States of America signs an international treaty, it becomes part of our body of law, and we are bound to abide by it. This is in accordance with Section VI, Clause 2 of the Constitution:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

If a treaty we signed says that a foreign national arrested for a crime is due certain rights, and we did not accord him those rights, then it is a fit subject for appeal. Now, I'm not saying that's what happened in this case. I don't know the particulars of this case, nor am I familiar with the details of any applicable treaty.

But, if the State of Texas violated this treaty, then the Supreme Court has every obligation to review the case; not to apply "international" law, or to take notice of any statements by the World Court, but to apply U.S. law, which is what a treaty is once it's signed by the President and approved by the Senate.

[TFine80]

Uh-Oh....

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35367

O'Connor: U.S. must rely on foreign law
Justice says, 'The impressions we create in this world are important'

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

American courts need to pay more attention to international legal decisions to help create a more favorable impression abroad, said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor at an awards dinner in Atlanta.


Sandra Day O'Connor

"The impressions we create in this world are important, and they can leave their mark," O'Connor said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The 73-year-old justice and some of her high court colleagues have made similar appeals to foreign law, not only in speeches and interviews, but in some of their legal opinions. Her most recent public remarks came at a dinner Tuesday sponsored by the Atlanta-based Southern Center for International Studies.

The occasion was the center's presentation to her of its World Justice Award.

O'Connor told the audience, according to the Atlanta paper, the U.S. judicial system generally gives a favorable impression worldwide, "but when it comes to the impression created by the treatment of foreign and international law and the United States court, the jury is still out."

She cited two recent Supreme Court cases that illustrate the increased willingness of U.S. courts to take international law into account in its decisions.

In 2002, she said, the high court regarded world opinion when it ruled executing the mentally retarded to be unconstitutional.

American diplomats, O'Connor added, filed a court brief in that case about the difficulties their foreign missions faced because of U.S. death penalty practices.

More recently, the Supreme Court relied partly on European Court decisions in its decision to overturn the Texas anti-sodomy law.

"I suspect," O'Connor said, according to the Atlanta daily, "that over time we will rely increasingly, or take notice at least increasingly, on international and foreign courts in examining domestic issues."

Doing so, she added, "may not only enrich our own country's decisions, I think it may create that all important good impression."

In July, O'Connor made a rare television news show appearance with Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer in which they were asked whether the U.S. Constitution, the oldest governing document in use in the world today, will continue to be relevant in an age of globalism.

Speaking with ABC News' "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos, Breyer took issue with Justice Antonin Scalia, who, in a dissent in the Texas sodomy ruling, contended the views of foreign jurists are irrelevant under the U.S. Constitution.

Breyer had held that a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that homosexuals had a fundamental right to privacy in their sexual behavior showed the Supreme Court's earlier decision to the contrary was unfounded in the Western tradition.

"We see all the time, Justice O'Connor and I, and the others, how the world really – it's trite but it's true – is growing together," Breyer said. "Through commerce, through globalization, through the spread of democratic institutions, through immigration to America, it's becoming more and more one world of many different kinds of people. And how they're going to live together across the world will be the challenge, and whether our Constitution and how it fits into the governing documents of other nations, I think will be a challenge for the next generations."

In his dissent in the Texas case, Scalia said: "The court's discussion of these foreign views (ignoring, of course, the many countries that have retained criminal prohibitions on sodomy) is ... meaningless dicta. Dangerous dicta, however, since this court ... should not impose foreign moods, fads, or fashions on Americans," he said quoting the 2002 Foster v. Florida case.

Scalia's scathing critique of the 6-3 sodomy ruling was unusual in its bluntness.

"Today's opinion is the product of a court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct," he wrote. Later he concluded: "This court has taken sides in the culture war."

The current court is split between Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Clarence Thomas and Scalia, who tend to hold the traditional constitutionalist approach to rulings, and the majority of O'Connor, Breyer, Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginzburg, David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens, who tend to believe in the concept of a "living Constitution" subject to changes in public opinion and interpretation.

[FITZ]

I don't think he cares one iota if they stay and keep murdeering in Mexico --- he's done nothing so far about that horrendous atrocity going on. These are poor girls getting murdered -- they're not in the USA sending precious dollars back that can filter up to the elites.

[William Terrell]

When I read the article, certain phraseology burned me up and I started to frame an angry comment. Then I thought. This is a treaty. It was probably signed to make sure our guys in foreign lands wouldn't just be dumped in a prison and left anonymously to rot.

That being the case, we have to be willing to do the same, even if the subject is a murdering animal who took American lives.

But there is still some legitimate burn. This is about Mexico's lack of the death penalty and their wanting to spare this item's life, not really about being notified under the treaty. Anybody else, including life incarceration, they probably wouldn't have cared.

The fact is they don't need the death penalty. Their psychopaths and sociopaths seek their fortunes in the North along with their indigent. They just don't want us to to kill 'em but support 'em for the rest of their lives in a warm comfortable US prison.

OK, if they want to spare this thug, then how about they store him in a Mexican prison and feed him on their dime.

[B4Ranch]

This may be the final slice of cake for American culture.

If the Court rules that we should follow "international law" then we will know all the papers, the US Constitution,the State Constitutions, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the United States Code, the UCMJ, you name it have all been tossed in the shredder and we are living under the United Nations Charter.

Annan in historic meeting with Supreme Court &Congress/is believed to be unprecedented.

[dennisw]

This killer needs to be dispatched ASAP. It's a crying shame that some effin' world court seems to have precedence over a state court. Texas in this case. It's a double curse of Mexico sending us some of their worst. In this case the killer was in a Mexican gang.

Then when these (usually) illegal immigrant Mexicans kill here, Mexico tries to prevent us from applying the death penalty.

[B4Ranch]

a package of 34 treaties, all of which were ratified by a show of hands -- no recorded vote.

When Treaties are passed like this, the American people ARE NOT BOUND TO THEM!

CONGRESS SNEAKS THRU-THE NEW DOMESTIC-TERRORISM-BILL (SNIP)
What they did was waved the rules and voted on it with the 20 people that were present.

20 Senators do NOT represent America!

If our leaders think this is the way that we want our government to operate (behind our backs) then one day they will find the US Marines will be aiming their rifles at them and that is not the end of the barrel you want to be looking at Senator!