Free Republic

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- The United States violated international law by putting a Mexican national to death in Texas, the Mexican government said Wednesday. Protesters for and against Jose Ernesto Medellin's execution gathered before he was put to death Tuesday night in Huntsville, Texas, for raping and murdering two teens in 1993. His death ended 15 years of legal disputes on a sour note. "The government of Mexico sent the U. S. Department of State a diplomatic note of protest for this violation of international law, expressing its concern for the precedent that it may create for the rights...

The United States is fast approaching a showdown over its commitment to the rule of international law as Texas prepares to carry out the scheduled Aug. 5 execution of convicted killer and rapist Jose Medellin. On July 14, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ordered the US government to "take all measures necessary" to prevent the execution of Mr. Medellin and four other Mexican nationals awaiting execution dates on death row in Texas. . . Medellin admitted involvement in the gang rape and murder of two girls. The girls, ages 14 and 16, took a shortcut home through...

A Mexican-born convicted rapist and murderer was executed Tuesday. Jose Medellin was killed by lethal injection in a Texas prison for the rape, torture and murder of 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena and 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman. “I’m sorry my actions caused you pain. I hope this brings you the closure that you seek. Never harbor hate,” Medellin said to the group who had gathered to watch him die. He was pronounced dead at 9:57 p.m. Medellin, 33, was convicted in the 1993 gang rape, beating and murder of Pena and Ertman. He and five fellow gang members attacked the girls as they...

Medellin executed for rape, murder of Houston teens By ALLAN TURNER and ROSANNA RUIZ Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Aug. 6, 2008, 12:36AM Comments Recommend 1 2 3 Texas Department of Criminal Justice Jose Medellin's case created international controversy when the United Nations' world court determined Texas had violated the killer's rights under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Share Print Email Del.icio.usDiggTechnoratiYahoo! BuzzHUNTSVILLE — The state of Texas defied an international court and executed Jose Ernesto Medellin late Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution for the killer in the 1993 Houston gang rape-murders of...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Mexican national Jose Ernesto Medellin has been executed by lethal injection, according to Texas prison officials. Jose Ernesto Medellin was put to death for his part in the gang rape and murder of two Texas girls. Corrections spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said Medellin died at 9:57 CT. The U.S. Supreme Court denied the last-ditch appeal of a Mexican national on Texas' death row late Tuesday, paving the way for him to be executed for a pair of brutal slayings, state corrections officials said. Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said about 9:15 p.m. that the court...

Medellin Execute For Rape, Murder of Houston Teens Link Only

Splitting 5-4, the Supreme Court refused Tuesday night to delay the execution in Texas of Mexican national Jose Ernesto Medellin. The majority’s unsigned opinion, and dissents by each of the other four Justices, can be read here. Since the death warrant was to remain in effect until 1 a.m. Eastern time, Texas was expected to go ahead with the exection that had originally been scheduled for 7 p.m. It was delayed at least three hours by the Court’s review of a series of claims for relief by Medellin’s attorneys. The majority said that the chance that Congress or the Texas...

WASHINGTON -- Injecting last-minute uncertainty into a case that has garnered international attention, the U.S. Supreme Court considered a late-hour appeal by Texas death row inmate Jose Ernesto Medellin on Tuesday night, disrupting the timetable for his scheduled execution in the 1993 rape and murder of two Houston teenagers.

After backing the sovereignty of the state of Texas and rejecting international meddling, the US Supreme Court’s consideration of a last-ditch appeal has put illegal alien rapist/double murderer Jose Medellin’s scheduled execution tonight on hold. Stay tuned for late-breaking developments.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court considered a last-minute appeal by a Mexican national Tuesday night, temporarily delaying his scheduled execution in Texas. Lawyers for Jose Ernesto Medellin, 33, say that he was denied access to a Mexican consul when he was arrested for participating in the rape and killing of two teenage girls. Medellin's execution was scheduled for 6 p.m. but put on hold when the Supreme Court decided to consider his claim, McClatchy Newspapers reported. A spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry said the state was waiting to hear from the court before proceeding with...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a last-minute appeal to the United States Tuesday to halt the scheduled execution of a Mexican national sentenced to death for murder in defiance of an International Court of Justice (ICJ) order. Jose Ernesto Medellin, 33, was due to be executed by lethal injection at 2300 GMT in the state of Texas. He was convicted of the 1993 rape and murder of two teenagers and is one 51 Mexican nationals on death row in the United States. Less than 12 hours before Medellin's planned execution, Ban called on the US government...

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — Texas officials cleared the way Monday for the execution of Jose Medellin, one of 51 Mexican nationals on U.S. death row, for his role with five other members of a Houston gang in the 1993 murder and rape of two teenage girls. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday rejected Medellin's request for a reprieve. Medellin, 33, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. CDT today. The decision violates the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, according to the International Court of Justice. President Bush ordered Texas to comply with that decision,...

The Bush administration's "extraordinary" effort to comply with an international court order granting new hearings for 51 Mexican nationals on death row has been stymied by federal laws, U.S. State Department lawyers said Friday. "The issue of capital punishment arouses deep feelings," said State Department legal adviser John B. Bellinger III, according to transcripts filed with the court. "But this is not about the death penalty." Bellinger told the International Court of Justice -- the principal judicial organ of the United Nations -- that while the administration understands its obligation to abide by the court's rulings, current U.S. law does...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- Mexico appealed to the U.N.'s highest court Thursday to block the executions of Mexicans in the United States, arguing U.S. officials have failed to comply with a judgment ordering a review of their trials. The International Court of Justice said Mexico asked the court for an "interpretation" of an earlier ruling to clarify its meaning when it asked the U.S. to "review and reconsider" the cases of the condemned prisoners. Until that can be done, Mexico said the United States "must take any and all steps necessary" to ensure that none of its citizens is executed,...

Over the past few years many Americans have become deeply concerned that judges have begun relying more and more on foreign law to decide questions of U.S. constitutional law. One doesn’t have to be a constitutional scholar to object to foreign laws and foreign courts -- laws that are not enacted by our democratic government and judges who are not selected as our Constitution provides -- ruling on Americans’ rights and the powers of American government. These concerns are largely well founded, and reflect the increasing degree to which modern constitutional adjudication has become altogether unmoored from the text and...

The Supreme Court Stands Alone by Thomas P. Kilgannon Dulles, Virginia -- The World Court got a whoopin last week when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case of Medellin v. Texas, which involves Jose Medellin, a death row inmate convicted of rape and murder of two teenage girls in 1993. Writing the 6-3 majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts informed the wig-wearing jurists at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Texas courts are under no obligation to obey the ICJ’s ruling to give Medellin a new hearing. Medellin is a gang member and a Mexican...

WASHINGTON - President Bush overstepped his authority when he ordered a Texas court to reopen the case of a Mexican on death row for rape and murder, the Supreme Court said Tuesday. In a case that mixes presidential power, international relations and the death penalty, the court sided with Texas 6-3. Bush was in the unusual position of siding with death row prisoner Jose Ernesto Medellin, a Mexican citizen whom police prevented from consulting with Mexican diplomats, as provided by international treaty. An international court ruled in 2004 that the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on death row...

WASHINGTON — President Bush overstepped his authority when he ordered a Texas court to grant a new hearing to a Mexican on death row for rape and murder, the Supreme Court said Tuesday. In a case that mixes presidential power, international relations and the death penalty, the court sided with Texas 6-3. Bush was in the unusual position of siding with death row prisoner Jose Ernesto Medellin, a Mexican citizen whom police prevented from consulting with Mexican diplomats, as provided by international treaty. An international court ruled in 2004 that the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on death...

President Bush overstepped his authority when he ordered a Texas court to reopen the case of a Mexican on death row for rape and murder, the Supreme Court said Tuesday. In a case that mixes presidential power, international relations and the death penalty, the court sided with Texas 6-3. Bush was in the unusual position of siding with death row prisoner Jose Ernesto Medellin, a Mexican citizen whom police prevented from consulting with Mexican diplomats, as provided by international treaty. An international court ruled in 2004 that the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on death row around the...

WASHINGTON — President Bush, who presided over 152 executions as governor of Texas, wants to halt the state's execution of a Mexican national for the brutal killing of two teenage girls. The case of Jose Ernesto Medellin has become a confusing test of presidential power that the U.S. Supreme Court, which hears the case this week, ultimately will sort out. The president wants to enforce a decision by the International Court of Justice that found the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexican-born prisoners violated their rights to legal help as outlined in the 1963 Vienna Convention. That is the...

WASHINGTON — To put it bluntly, Texas wants President Bush to get out of the way of the state's plan to execute a Mexican for the brutal killing of two teenage girls. Bush, who presided over 152 executions as governor of Texas, wants to halt the execution of Jose Ernesto Medellin in what has become a confusing test of presidential power that the Supreme Court ultimately will sort out. This undated photo released by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows death row inmate Jose Ernesto Medellin. Texas wants President Bush to get out of the way of the state's...

Death Penalty Case Puts Bush and Texas at Odds Over Mexican's FateSunday, October 07, 2007 WASHINGTON — President Bush, who presided over 152 executions as governor of Texas, wants to halt the state's execution of a Mexican national for the brutal killing of two teenage girls. The case of Jose Ernesto Medellin has become a confusing test of presidential power that the U.S. Supreme Court, which hears the case this week, ultimately will sort out. The president wants to enforce a decision by the International Court of Justice that found the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexican-born prisoners violated...

WASHINGTON — President Bush and Texas, the state he once led, were on opposite sides of a Supreme Court dispute today over the role of international law and claims of executive power in the case of a Mexican on death row for rape and murder in Houston. The justices engaged in a spirited discussion of who gets the final say in whether Texas courts must give Jose Ernesto Medellin a new hearing because local police never notified Mexican diplomats that he had been arrested, in violation of an international treaty. An international court ruled in 2004 that the convictions of...

President Bush's demands in the Medellin murder case, now being heard before the U.S. Supreme Court, are "bizarrely grotesque," according to the chief counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. And the warning from ADF Chief Counsel Benjamin Bull notes that the case could result in U.S. laws being subjugated to U.N. resolutions and rules to the point that local police officers will have to spend more time studying international law than catching criminals. "The notion that an international body can Mirandize the right of an illegal immigrant to call a consulate, so that if the local police trip up and...

WASHINGTON - To put it bluntly, Texas wants President Bush to get out of the way of the state's plan to execute a Mexican for the brutal killing of two teenage girls. Bush, who presided over 152 executions as governor of Texas, wants to halt the execution of Jose Ernesto Medellin in what has become a confusing test of presidential power that the Supreme Court, which hears the case this week, ultimately will sort out. The president wants to enforce a decision by the International Court of Justice that found the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexican-born prisoners violated...

Recent violence in Sao Paulo may just be the tip of the iceberg: Many parts of Brazil and indeed across Latin America, governments have capitulated to gangsters, and the rise of organized crime could end the recent leftward shift across Latin America. Garbage containers block the road into slum district Vigario Geral, one of the most dangerous favelas in Rio de Janeiro. A visitor approaches the barricade, two youths appear from the shadow of a nearby building. They're carrying machine guns, and handguns are tucked into their pants. "You want to go to church, right?" the older of the two...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court Monday turned aside an appeal by a Mexican citizen on death row in Texas. In an unsigned decision, justices dismissed the case brought by Jose Medellin that had drawn worldwide interest. Medellin was one of five gang members sentenced to death for raping and murdering two Houston girls in 1993. The victims were 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman and 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena. His attorneys said Medellin and 51 other Mexican death row inmates' rights under international law were violated when they were denied legal help from their consulates. The justices cited a last-minute maneuver by President...

Prompted by an international tribunal's decision last year ordering new hearings for 51 Mexicans on death rows in the United States, the State Department said yesterday that the United States had withdrawn from the protocol that gave the tribunal jurisdiction to hear such disputes. The withdrawal followed a Feb. 28 memorandum from President Bush to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales directing state courts to abide by the decision of the tribunal, the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The decision required American courts to grant "review and reconsideration" to claims that the inmates' cases had been hurt by the...

Jose Ernesto Medellin was 18 when, while participating in an initiation for the "Black and Whites" street gang in Houston, he was among those who raped and killed two teenage girls in a particular heinous way, a jury found. In a petition to the Supreme Court, Medellin's court-appointed lawyers contend he told arresting officers he was born in Laredo, Mexico, and was not a U.S. citizen. Nevertheless, the International Court of Justice found, he was not told of his right to contact the Mexican consul, who could have offered translation as well as legal help. Convicted and sentenced to death,...

<p>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.</p>

Ex-Colombian druglord found guilty of conspiracy By JAY WEAVER jweaver@herald.com A jury convicted legendary drug cartel boss Fabio Ochoa Wednesday afternoon of running a 30-ton-a-month cocaine smuggling network during the late 1990s.Clad in a blue blazer blazer, Ochoa dropped to his knees and made the sign of the cross after the jury convicted him. Ochoa, who once ran the Medellin cartel, remained on bended knee while his lawyer Roy Black polled jurors.The conviction is a major score for federal prosecutors because Ochoa is one of the most prominent smugglers to face trial in this country since the U.S. and Colombia...