The Supreme Court today dismissed as “improvidently granted” the case of Jose Medellin, a Mexican national on death row in Texas primarily because President Bush has interevened and ordered state courts to abide by a ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In an unsigned decision, the Justices decided not to review this case as a matter of federal habeas corpus law. They did note, however, that once this matter is reviewed in Texas state courts, the U.S. Supreme Court “would in all likelihood have an opportunity to review the Texas courts’ treatment of the President’s memorandum and [the] Case Concerning Avena and other Mexican Nationals.…” (footnote 1).
The World Court had determined that the U.S. government had failed to comply with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations’ requirement of consular access for foreigners arrested in the United States, and it directed that U.S. courts consider the claims of almost all of the Mexican nationals on U.S. death rows who had not been afforded this protection. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that it was precluded from giving effect to the ICJ judgment by prior U.S. Supreme Court precedent. After the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case but before oral arguments, President Bush issued an Executive Order directing the state courts to give effect to the ICJ ruling and consider the complaints of Medellin. Attorneys for Medellin had asked the Court to stay the case until after Medellin had his hearing in state court. Attorneys for Texas argued that Medellin’s federal claim was barred on procedural grounds and that President Bush does not have the constitutional authority to order Texas courts to comply with the international court’s judgment. In today’s dismissal, the Court cited the President’s Executive Order as a chief reason for not reviewing the case, and reserved the right to hear a future appeal once the case had run its course in state court.
Justice Ginsburg would have granted Medellin’s request for a stay but concurred in the dismissal of the case. Four other Justices (O’Connor, Stevens, Souter and Breyer) dissented from the Court’s dismissal of the case and would have decided whether the Fifth Circuit was correct in holding that there were no debatable issues for appeal. Justice O’Connor wrote in dissent:
In this country, the individual States’ (often confessed) noncompliance with the treaty has been a vexing problem. It has three times been the subject of proceedings in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The problem may have considerable ramifications, because foreign nationals are regularly subject to state criminal justice systems. For example, in 2003, over 56,000 noncitizens were held in state prisons. Noncitizens accounted for over 10% of the prison populations in California, New York, and Arizona.
Noncompliance with our treaty obligations is especially worrisome in capital cases. As of February 2005, 119 noncitizens from 31 nations were on state death row. In Avena, the ICJ determined that the United States had breached its obligation to inform 51 Mexican nationals, all sentenced to death in this country, of their right to consular notification. Medellín is just one of them. His case thus presents, and the Court in turn avoids, questions that will inevitably recur.
(internal citations omitted).
See today’s (May 23) opinions from the Supreme Court in Medellin: http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/23may20051130/www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/04pdf/04 – 5928.pdf
See also Associated Press, May 23, 2005.
See DPIC’s Questions and Answers on the Medellin case: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?&did=1380
See Medellin’s Petition for a Writ of Certiorari; Texas’ Brief in Opposition; Medellin’s Reply; and Amici briefs
https://www.debevoise.com/news/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1152312142004
See DPIC’s page on Foreign Nationals
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=198&scid=31
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