A post by Pat
Quickly gone is the sweet taste of Bush finally—but no doubt reluctantly—doing something for Ramos and Compean. Today we’re reminded he sided with Mexico in favor of Jose Medellin, an illegal immigrant gang rapist and murderer. Fortunately the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Texas courts over the International Court of Justice and President Bush. Fitting that this latest IJC ruling, a scolding and a threat, comes at the onset of President Obama’s administration. A sign of things to come?
Medellin participated in the hour-long gang rape of two teenage girls. The girls were killed, one strangled with her own shoelaces, so the assailants would not be identified. Medellin later boasted he had virgin blood on his clothes. He was convicted and given the death sentence by a Texas court. Legal wranglings followed. Mexico got into it claiming Medellin and dozens of other Mexican nationals were not advised they had the right to speak to the Mexican Consulate. The case went before the International Court of Justice which of course ruled in favor of Mexico.
Bush jumped into the legal fray on the side of Mexico. There cetainly are implications concerning treatment of Americans in foreign courts. That doesn’t mean our own laws can automatically be preempted by international law.
Medellin filed several appeals. All were rejected. Bush withdrew from the Optional Protocol after the IJC’s first ruling in favor of Mexico. He then issued a President’s Memorandum asserting the power of the President to review convictions and sentences of foreign nationals under the Vienna Convention. The Supreme Court (Medellin v Texas ) blew away both the IJC’s jurisdiction and Bush’s assertion of Presidential power in such matters. However, the Supreme Court’s ruling was based heavily on the fact the treaty was not binding on domestic law unless Congress has enacted statutes implementing it or the treaty itself conveys an intention that it is “self-executing”. To me that means the door is still open for Congress to hand over our legal system to the IJC.
Medellin was executed on August 5, 2008.
U.N. court: U.S. execution violated treaty
“The United States of America has breached the obligation incumbent upon it” to stop the execution, the International Court of Justice said Monday in its unanimous opinion.
The court was asked to decide whether U.S. states had to follow a presidential demand that a foreign-national prisoner be granted new hearings and resentencing. Bush made that request for Medellin after the international court in 2004 concluded that Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on death rows in several states were denied access to their consulate upon arrest, a violation of a treaty signed by the United States decades ago.
Bush backs Mexico, rapist-murderer
Jose Medellin confessed in 1993 to participating in the rape and murder of two Houston teenagers. Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena were sodomized and strangled with their shoe laces. Medellin bragged about keeping one girl’s Mickey Mouse watch as a souvenir of the crime.
Medellin and four others were convicted of capital murder and sent to Texas’ death row. A juvenile court sentenced Medellin’s younger brother, who was 14 at the time, to 40 years in prison.
The Bush administration became involved in the Medellin case in 2003 when Mexico sued the U.S. over the consular issue in the International Court of Justice at the Hague. The so-called “World Court” is the United Nations’ top court for resolving international disputes.
The court ruled in Mexico’s favor in late 2004 and ordered the U.S. to reconsider the Mexican inmates’ murder convictions and death sentences. In February 2005, Bush announced that while he disagreed with the World Court’s decision, the U.S. would comply. He ordered courts in Texas and elsewhere to review the cases. .
The IJC completely disregards the imperatives of our Constitution. It was of course a 5-4 decision that preserved our sovereignty. How long can we hold on?
The Medellins are the brothers from hell. One of them got sent back. The other, just 14 when they raped and mudered the two teenaged girls, is a monster in a cage.
Years ago, when an American punk vandilized cars in Singapore and got his butt whacked with bamboo canes as punishment, I was glad to see it happen. I don’t like it when Americans act up abroad. It makes us look bad. You’re supposed to set an example when you’re in another country.
To hell with Mexico and the IJC. Both should be too horrified at the sheer brutality of the crime; the unimaginable terror, torture, and cruel bewilderment those innocent girls suffered to object to the murderers sentence on any grounds.
Instead of sending out legal documents everywhere whining about technicalities on behalf of these miscreants, Mexico should have sent letters of condolence to the girls families, forever wounded by the loss of those sweet, young lives at the hands of animals. Animals no country should defend, and should be ashamed to claim as citizens.
The next two are scheduled to be executed this year. Yeah, Saline solution mixed with Sodium Bromide, yum, yum, good for the SCUM!!!
Sorry, I think Sodium Bromide might not be the chemical they inject in Scum to put them to sleep here in Texas. It might be Potassium Bromide? Oh, what the hell, just get the gun and be done with da SCUM!
One issue I am persoanlly at odds with is the Death Penalty. Being a conservative Republican all my life, clearly this is difficult. THe fact that I am a Methodist and attended so many Roman Catholic catholic masses, it is amazing how different the ideology is. I for one have always been Pro-life and anti-death penalty. If someone harms or kills my children or other family, even close friend, please give me five minutes in a room with the individual and I will walk out of there with not only the assailants eyes, but several parts that may be required to sustain life. I will do it with my bare hands like an animal. That sounds incredibly ridiculous, yet I believe it is philosphically and evangelically sound. THere are those who are homicidal and will kill people hienously or profoundly diabolical. Would they have any redeeming value to humanity? Frankly there has to be something with in their metabolism, with in their humanity to indicate whatever ailment makes them kill. Therefore the idea of actually finding a problem and perhaps curing the problem does exist.
It is a moral dilema. If an individual is retarded, how could you not say the individul did not know better? If the killer is on a controlled substance, It is his choice, however the substance did create the inability to comprehend the incident. If a husband hates her husband and kills him over time or in a premeditated series of events, that is diabolical. I sound odd in that idea, and the fact that I would have premeditation in wiping out some one who wipes out a part of me, that is to me justification. We can treat any one or every one as ‘scum’ and be justified in bringing about their demise. Unless we are in the exact circumstance of justification of putting a human to death, it is almost impossible.
A good question is would you allow the killer to perhaps end his life? I believe as a christian that suicide, taking on’e God given life is a sin God cannot forgive. So Hell is perhaps the best penalty of all. It depends on what you believe I suppose.
To the victims of these scum- My prayers.
To the Scum that raped and killed them- Good riddance. Too bad the younger brother couldn’t follow his brother.
To Mexico,the IJC and the 4 Supremes that bow to Foreign Law- A one finger salute :-(.