New test of president’s powers: Medellin case is back
on Jan 19, 2007 at 1:10 pm
The power of the President to tell states that they must follow a World Court decision in dealing with foreign nationals arrested and prosecuted within their borders is newly at issue before the Supreme Court, with a just-filed appeal by a Mexican national, Jose Ernesto Medellin. The Court had sent Medellin’s claim of treaty violations back to Texas state courts after President Bush intervened to call for enforcement of a World Court ruling. That resulted in a sweeping ruling by Texas’ highest state against presidential interference in state criminal processes. Medellin’s lawyers filed a new appeal on Jan. 16 to test the issue. It is Medellin v. Texas (docket 06-984). The petition, with appendices, can be found here. (It is a lengthy document.)
These are the questions the new appeal poses:
“1. Did the President of the United States act within his constitutional and statutory foreign affairs authority when he determined that the states must comply with the United States’ treaty obligations to give effect to the [World Court’s] Avena judgment in the cases of the 51 Mexican nationals named in the judgment
“2. Are state courts bound by the Constitution to honor the undisputed international obligations of the United States, under treaties duly ratified by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, to give effect to the Avena judgment in the cases that the judgment addressed?”
An earlier post discussing the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decision can be found here.
The federal government took part in the case in the Texas court, but only as an amicus in support of Medellin. Thus, the government would not appear to have any right to appeal to the Court to defend presidential authority. It could, however, seek to intervene in the case in the Supreme Court. If that were to happen, it would significantly strengthen the chances for Supreme Court review. The current Administration, however, is not keenly in favor of the World Court ruling at issue, and, in fact, has withdrawn from the global protocol that conceded that the World Court could decide cases such as the Mexican nationals’ treaty claims against U.S. states.
The core issue in this controversy is whether states have an obligation to allow foreign nationals who are arrested and prosecuted within those states a chance to consult with a consular officer from their home country (under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations). That issue leads into the other question now at stake: must states abide by a World Court ruling that the Vienna Convention has been violated. Texas and other states have taken the position that, if the foreign nationals did not raise their Vienna Convention challenges at trial, they are barred under state procedural rules from raising those claims after conviction.
Medellin has been convicted in Texas state court of murder and sentenced to death for his role in the gang rape and murder of two teenage girls in Houston. He was denied relief on his claim of a Vienna Convention violation. Medellin ultimately appealed to the Supreme Court, to try to take advantage of the World Court decision in his favor (and in favor of the treaty rights of 50 other Mexican nationals prosecuted in American states). The Court agreed in December 2004 to hear the case. While the case was pending there, however, President Bush directed state courts to “give effect” to the World Court ruling so far as it applied to the 51 Mexican nationals. The Court then sent the case back to state court to consider the President’s order, in a post-conviction challenged filed by Medellin’s attorneys.
In Medellin’s new appeal, his lawyers note that fthe Supreme Court had indicated that, if Medellin did not get relief in state court, the case could then be open for Supreme Court review. “The circumstances contemplated by the Court in its earlier decision have now come to pass” with the rejection of Medellin’s challenge by the Texas appellate court, the new appeal says. “The Court should grant the writ because the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has challenged the president’s constitutional and statutory authority to conduct the nation’s foreign affairs,” the appeal argues. “It is imperative that the international community understands that when the United States gives its word,….the United States will keep its word. Especially in a case involving capital punishment, this Court cannot stand by when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals tells the world otherwise.”
Medellin’s attorneys now have a federal habeas petition pending in U.S. District Court in Texas, but have asked that Court to put the case on hold until after his appeal to the Supreme Court is resolved. That challenge, too, is based on both the World Court ruling and on President Bush’s action to enforce it.
