Consular Relations

• Pages: 128-129

Page 128

Jose Ernesto Medellin (Petitioner), a Mexican citizen on death row in Texas, applied for a stay of execution. A jury had convicted him of raping and strangling two teenaged girls. He argued that eitherPage 129 the U.S. Congress or the Texas Legislature could determine that the International Court of Justice's (ICJ's) ruling in this matter could lead to vacating his death sentence. In 2004, the ICJ held in the Case Concerning Avena and Other Mexican Nationals (Mexico v United States of America (Judgment) [31 March 2004] ICJ, available at http://www.icjcij.org), that the 51 Mexican nationals (including Medellin) sentenced in various states of the U.S. were entitled to review and reconsideration of their convictions and sentences because of a breach of the consular notifi cation requirements of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations [21 U.S.T. 77; T.I.A.S. 6820; 596 U.N.T.S 261; in force for U.S. Dec. 24, 1969].

Justice Scalia, writing for the narrow majority, denied the application. He held that that the possibility of legislative action is too remote to stay the execution. "It is up to Congress whether to implement obligations undertaken under a treaty which (like this one) does not itself have the force and effect of domestic law sufficient to set aside the judgment or the ensuing sentence, and Congress has not progressed beyond the bare introduction of a bill in the four years since the ICJ ruling and the four months since our ruling in Medellín v. Texas, 552 U.S. ___ (2008). This inaction is consistent with the President's decision in 2005 to withdraw the United States' accession to jurisdiction of the ICJ with regard to matters arising under the [Consular] Convention."

"The Department of Justice of the United States is well aware of these...