Posted on 10/11/2007 8:47:11 AM PDT by Turret Gunner A20
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 Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on death row around the United States violated the 1963 Vienna Convention, which provides that people arrested abroad should have access to their home country's consular officials. The International Court of Justice, also known as the world court, said the Mexican prisoners should have new court hearings to determine whether the violation affected their cases.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Besides, the Republic of Texas doens't have comply with other weenie nation's agreements.
>>The father of a 14-year-old Texas girl who was raped, sodomized and then strangled with a belt and shoe laces, wants to know why President Bush supports halting the execution of the Mexican national who confessed to killing his daughter and her friend.<<
>>Ertman said he feels betrayed by Bush’s decision. Ertman shook Bush’s hand when he was running for president, asking him if he remembered the girls and if he would keep their killers on death row. Bush said he would keep them on death row, Ertman said.
“He shook my hand and lied,” Ertman said.<<
And then we see Bush defenders complain about “Bush haters” on FR.
“Does anyone on earth not know enough to contact their embassy if they get in trouble in a foreign country?”
I think this is a case of Juris Ignorantia Est Cum Nostrum Ignoramus, which is Latin and translates into English as roughly ..it is an ignorance of the law when we are unfamiliar with our own rights...
In this case the Mexicans were afforded every right under the American judicial system...I dont believe that our country is responsible in this case of illegally present foreign nationals..
The consulates/embassies help their own foreign nationals when the visitor is here legally with travel visas etc and when they have proper ID, passport issued by that country, etc...
An illegal alien usually doesnt use their own name, doesnt have ID, passport, other legal documents, travel or student visa, etc...
I dont know just how much right the Mexicans really have to go to their own consulate and to expect their own country’s consulate to help them (remember the help might be the extension of unrefundable money for a ticket home, housing, hospital, doctors, bail money, etc)
The consulate is honor-bound to protect and serve their own subjects if the visitor is in a foreign country legally with that country’s blessing, but if the “visitor” is there illegally?
When our country issues an American passport, it is with the understanding that the receptiant is eligible to use it and is free to travel aboard and with the American government’s blessing OK etc...We are expected to act decently and lawefully while in another country and have the proper documents (any necessary visas etc) and only stay as long as we are lawfully allowed to...When you fill out your documents on the plane, there is a requirement to list any hotel reservations and prove you have returning plane tickets... or before you embark at a foreign port while on a cruise, that you understand when the ship will be leaving again...woe betide the passenger who misses the ship...consulates do not like that...
I think that under the circumstance that the 50 Mexicans were not here legally with either country issuing a PRIOR document of some type of permission to enter...that none of the convicted illegal aliens have any standing before the SCOTUS, nor the International Court...
Surely illegal entrance into a country is frowned upon by the courts in every land, and since Mexico has gone to the International Court, the IC will require that Mexican imnmigration law be researched for legal advise...
Well, I do think that is only fair....
I read the article, but don't understand what good you're referring to. Could you elaborate?
>>>The International Court of Justice, also known as the world court, said the Mexican prisoners should have new court hearings to determine whether the violation affected their cases.<<<
That is the opinion of a foreign court and it bears no legal weight nor sets any precedent in any United States court. And it nost assuredly cannot tell them what to do in a case.
... Justice Antonin Scalia, ... wondered whether American courts could hand the ultimate decision to a foreign court. "I'm rather jealous of that power," Scalia said. "I don't know on what basis we can allow some international court to decide what is the responsibility of this court, which is the meaning of the United States law." (Justice)Kennedy at one point suggested that Texas courts already have done what the world court had ordered. "I think Medellin did receive all the hearing that he's entitled to under the judgment anyway," Kennedy said. Texas Solicitor General R. Ted Cruz did not dispute that Texas violated the Vienna Convention, but said: "Both the federal and state courts that looked at this concluded that there was no even arguable prejudice from the violation." Texas acknowledges that Medellin was not told he could ask for help from Mexican diplomats, but argues that he forfeited the right because he never raised the issue at trial or sentencing. In any case, the state argues, the diplomats' intercession would not have made any difference in the outcome of the case. In view of the above cited facts, the Court came to the correct decision. As I said, they "done good" -- at least enough of them did to carry the day.
He ran off some conservatives with his new tone thing. He ran some more letting Sandy Burglar off. He ran off some more with his Harriet Miers nomination. He ran off some more with his Dubia Ports deal. He ran off some more with his support for open borders and amnesty. And now he is running some more with his support of this murderer.
No wonder his ratings have tanked. A few lost on every misstep, adds up eventually. Turns out Rove wasn’t as smart as everyone thought.
Bush and Rove have set back the conservative movement years if not decades.
If they give these convicts a new hearing, then they should also yank the licenses of the lawyers for incompetence at worst, or not revealing a conflict of interest, that is, the foreign country may have hired another lawyer.
Mexico is our enemy. I’m ashamed I voted for spineless Bush.
???
Did the Court rule already?
Didn’t they? I thought they had.
Excellent post. Bush, while continuing to incite the irrational, ever-growing hatred of the scumbag left, has managed to alienate the right again and again (and yeah, even though the “Dubai Ports” thing was a bogus issue and embarrassed us because it caused an irrational knee-jerk reaction from so many conservatives, it still added to the alienaion). It is no wonder Bush’s approval ratings are so low.
Regards,
LH
Bingo!
What if a mayor decided not to prosecute bank robbers because the banks are rich and the robbers need the money? Same difference. I think if you are a police chief, or some other "hired" person, they should be fired. If the city won't fire them, then it needs to go higher on rico statutes. What would a citizen do if the police wouldn't arrest the mafia? You have to get out of the city and go higher. If the state won't do it, then federal.
Any lawyers out there???
>>I think that under the circumstance that the 50 Mexicans were not here legally with either country issuing a PRIOR document of some type of permission to enter...that none of the convicted illegal aliens have any standing before the SCOTUS, nor the International Court...<<
I don’t know if all 50 are illegals. But we should not have to jump through legal hoops. Usually, a defendant is responsible for entering objections before a case is appealed, and Medellin did not bring the issue of the right to see a Mexican representative until now, so perhaps SCOTUS will rule accordingly.
A couple of other things that are not clear to me:
What if the 50 death row aliens all claim that the police would not allow them to contact their consulates?
What if the many other aliens, who were convicted of other crimes but not on death row, make the claim that they should have had contact with their consulates, therefore they need a “review” of their cases, whatever a “review” means? If SCOTUS rules in favor of this preposterous surrender of sovereignty, it could affect many thousands of cases.
Bump
very important - this bears watching closely.
Oh, ok. I didn’t understand that they had already made their decision. Thanks.
So I'm not sure.
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