Posted on 03/25/2008 9:43:10 AM PDT by indcons
This is very good news. Congrats to the state of Texas, which had to fight the open-borders lobby and the Bush administration all the way to the high court to prevent international law from superseding American sovereignty:
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 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.
Bush, who oversaw 152 executions as Texas governor, disagreed with the decision. But he said it must be carried out by state courts because the United States had agreed to abide by the world court’s rulings in such cases. The administration argued that the president’s declaration is reason enough for Texas to grant Medellin a new hearing.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, disagreed. Roberts said the international court decision cannot be forced upon the states.
The president may not “establish binding rules of decision that pre-empt contrary state law,” Roberts said.
Andy McCarthy summed up the bottom line on this case last fall:
At bottom, the case is about the freedom of Texans to govern themselves, to put sadistic murderers to death if that is what they choose democratically to do, as long as they adhere to American constitutional procedures in carrying out that policy choice. Sure, it offends Mexicans, Europeans, international law professors, and a motley collection of jurists who see themselves as a supra-sovereign tribunal. But that is not a basis for the President to interfere.
The administration has made a great show of promoting democracy. Democracy, however, begins at home.
Don’t you forget it.
***
SCOTUSblog’s Lyle Deniston has more:
The Supreme Court, in a sweeping rejection of claims of power in the presidency, ruled 6-3 on Tuesday that the President does not have the authority to order states to relax their criminal procedures to obey a ruling of the World Court. The decision came in the case of Medellin v. Texas (06-984). Neither a World Court decision requiring U.S. states to provide new review of criminal cases involving foreign nationals, nor a memo by President Bush seeking to enforce the World Court ruling, preempts state law restrictions on challenges to convictions, the Court said in a ruling written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.
The decision, aside from its rebuff of presidential power, also treats the World Court ruling itself as not binding on U.S. states, when it contradicts those states’ criminal procedure rules. The international treaty at issue in this dispute — the Vienna Convention that gives foreign nationals accused of crime a right to meet with diplomats from their home country — is not enforceable as a matter of U.S. law, the Roberts opinion said. And the World Court ruling seeking to implement that treaty inside the U.S. is also not binding, and does not gain added legal effect merely because the President sought to tell the states to abide by the decision, the Court added.
The ruling also is a defeat for 51 Mexican nationals who won a World Court decision in 2004, finding that U.S. states had denied them their consular access rights and advising the U.S. government to take steps to enforce the ruling. In the specific case, Mexican national Jose Ernesto Medellin, sought to rely on both the World Court decision and the Bush memo to reopen his case, claiming that he was never given access to any Mexican diplomat while his case was going through Texas state courts.
The Bush Administration did not agree with the World Court ruling, and, in fact, withdrew from the international protocol that gave the World Court the authority to enforce the Vienna Convention. Even so, Bush issued a memo in February 2005, agreeing that the U.S. would seek to obey the World Court, and he told the states involve to “give effect” to that tribunal’s decision. The case thus came to the Court as a major test of presidential authority, in seeking to enforce treaty obligations, to override contradictory state criminal procedure rules. In that test, the presidency clearly lost.
The opinion will be posted here. Transcript of the oral arguments from last fall is here.
IMHO, there is a BIG difference between legal and illegal aliens, and Foreign Political Ambassadors (i.e. military and political dignitaries). There is privilege and immunity for ambassadors that is NOT extended to average people (not that I agree with it, but it’s there).
As I said (and I can’t remember more than one or two other times in my whole life I have said this...) there needs to be a new law then to cover these circumstances. A law that DOES apply to ALL states (as you mentioned codified in Federal Law).
However, I’m still seeing a big gray area here as far as just how far the Federal Gov’t is permitted to go in this instance in light of Amendment X. One could argue that it’s a matter of national security (Fed trumping states in this regard), and that might be the angle they need to take on this if indeed a new law needs to be written.
I’m not going to pretend to know all the ins and outs on these particular laws, but the 10th Amendment is pretty clear, IMO. (Then again, so is the 2nd and we all know how that’s going! LOL).
agreed. Illegally coming into this country means their noses are “unclean”.
How did President Bush violate the Constitution in this case? Hmmmm...
Treaties can only be binding so far as they do NOT violate the Constitution. A President cannot effectively destroy the validity of parts of the Constitution by the stroke of a pen on a treaty.
The President is not allowed to tell the individual state courts (or ANY court for that matter) what they can or cannot do. That’s why there is a separation of powers - to prevent the President from legislating independently in that manner by controlling the justice system.
The President can use the “bully pulpit” to encourage the courts to review the laws on behalf of the people (or even at his REQUEST on behalf of making sure our laws are being enforced), or to suggest a new law be passed by CONGRESS, but he is NOT allowed to call up a governor, or a judge, etc... and order them to do anything like demanding a new trial!
The President did not have the authority to unilaterally impose the World Court’s ruling upon Texas. That means that President Bush violated the Constitution, because he did something not permitted by the Constitution or by a federal law that is Constitutional.
Whatever that means.
Hmmm... I’ve always read and understood that a little differently. Maybe I’m wrong - maybe the President CAN destroy the entire Constitution with a stroke of a pen on a treaty! (Kind of scary, as that’s a pretty big loophole if you’re right, and I’m completely off-base on this...).
I wasn’t talking about immunity for any foreigner, but I am frightened when a State can refuse someone access to their embassy or consulate after being arrested for a crime, on whatever legal basis. To me, it’s just not right. And I’m thinking of Americans abroad on this one.
People here are ignoring the fact that this was refused when they were arrested, not after they were convicted. As with so many other incidents, they forget that people are considered innocent until proven guilty.
Now once they are proven guilty, line ‘em up and juice ‘em, but until them they should be accorded rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
I think they also forget that although now they think this is a good idea, I shudder what would happen if a Hillary got into power and started abusing their authority. It’s all fine and dandy until the shoe is on the other foot, until it’s their ox gettin gored.
Bush tried that with Mears and pressure forced a new nominee. We can do that with McCain.
So what have you and “God” decided to do about illegal aliens, Bob....give them full rights of US Citizens? They’ve got more rights than we do now. What do you suppose the authorities would do to you for identity theft?
I would like to ask the people supporting this decision a simple question.
Do you think it is right or fair that a foreignor, in any country, that has been arrested for whatever crime, should they be allowed to speak with representatives from their embassy?
Regardless of where you stand on the World Court issue or how you feel about illegal mexicans, this is the enduring question.
Who were the three who disagreed?
“Do you think it is right or fair that a foreignor, in any country, that has been arrested for whatever crime, should they be allowed to speak with representatives from their embassy?”
Sure he should be ‘allowed’. That doesn’t mean we have to hire a limo, drag him down there and make sure his embassy rep will talk to him. These Mexicans are NOT being abused, get over it!
There is no argument about that.
The issue based on some of these articles is that the defendant LIED and said they were americans.
They did not claim foreign status until LONG AFTER their trial was in appeal mode.
ALSO THEY HAD PUBLIC DEFENDERS who could have made the same claim.
Asking for the mexican embassy after the conviction is like asking for retroactive condoms after the pregnancy. Just not going to work.
The Bush I and Ford (horrible) nominees were appointed before the internet.
Sounds great.
I’ll delve into this decision a bit later when I have more time.
The defeat of the amnesty bill twice last summer and this smackdown should hearten conservatives that it's them who make things happen, not the dimple-assed poobahs down at the country club. (I'd love to be a fly on the wall of The Oval Office right now.)
No, but I do think they should be afforded the rights that our forefathers referred to as “unalienable” and “coming from God”. They defined them as such to impress that they are eternal and afforded every man, woman or child, and no ma, no emperor, king, despot, government or president can take them away from the people.
Because if they are defined being given to men by men, than they can be taken away from men by men.
It's these “truths that are self evident” on which much of our entire civil rights philosophy is based and that which gives it strength and durability. If you do not believe these basic rights must be afforded any person regardless of where they are from you undermine the very basis of system of justice and open the door to them being taken away by anyone who has the power and will to do so.
What disturbs me so much is how some conservatives who profess to love their country and their constitution can so horribly misinterpret it or casually toss it aside because it is for the moment inconvenient or because it is in the way of them pressing a transitory, emotional issue.
People talk of how liberals are ruled by their emotions, physician, heal thyself.
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