In a 5 – 4 vote on August 5, the U.S. Supreme Court reject­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion for Jose Medellin, a Mexican cit­i­zen, who was then exe­cut­ed in Texas that night. On August 7, Heliberto Chi, an Honduran cit­i­zen, was also exe­cut­ed in Texas. Medellin’s case had come before the Supreme Court on two pre­vi­ous occa­sions because the International Court of Justice had ruled that the U.S. had vio­lat­ed the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by not inform­ing him and oth­er for­eign nation­als of their rights under that treaty. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, with­out fur­ther action by Congress, Texas was not bound to hold up the exe­cu­tion, despite the treaty vio­la­tion. In the most recent major­i­ty opin­ion reject­ing Medellin’s stay, the Court said that the prospect of Congress act­ing soon on this issue was remote. The four Justices who dis­sent­ed from the denial of the stay each wrote sep­a­rate­ly about their con­cerns. Excerpts from some of their opinions follow:

Justice Breyer: “[T]o per­mit this exe­cu­tion to pro­ceed forth­with places the United States irre­me­di­a­bly in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law and breaks our treaty promis­es.… In my view, we should seek the views of the Solicitor General (which may well clar­i­fy these mat­ters), and we should grant a stay of suf­fi­cient length for care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion of those views, along with the oth­er briefs and mate­ri­als filed in this suit. A suf­fi­cient num­ber of Justices hav­ing vot­ed to secure those views (four), it is par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­ap­point­ing that no Member of the major­i­ty has proved will­ing to pro­vide a cour­tesy vote for a stay so that we can con­sid­er the Solicitor General’s view once received.”

Justice Stevens: ​“I believe we should request the views of the Solicitor General, who argued on behalf of the Executive Branch in ear­li­er pro­ceed­ings in the suit, before allow­ing Texas to pro­ceed with the exe­cu­tion.… Balancing the hon­or of the Nation against the mod­est bur­den of a short delay… con­vinces me that the appli­ca­tion for a stay should be grant­ed.”

Justice Souter: ​“I would there­fore enter the request­ed stay of exe­cu­tion for as long as the remain­der of the 2007 Term, to allow for a cur­rent state­ment of the views of the Solicitor General and for any con­gres­sion­al action that could affect the dis­po­si­tion of petitioner’s filings.”

Medellin v. Texas, No. 06 – 984, Aug. 5, 2008. See Foreign Nationals, International and U.S. Supreme Court.

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