Texas Court Ruling Rebuffs Bush and World Court

Adam Liptak reports in The New York Times

In 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that 51 Mexicans on death row in the United States were entitled to “review and reconsideration” of their claims that their rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations had been violated.

One of whom was Jose Ernesto Medellin.

When the question of whether the international tribunal’s ruling must be followed reached the United States Supreme Court last year, President Bush issued a memorandum to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales directing state courts to abide by the decision of the tribunal.

The Court then remanded Medellin's case to the Texas courts.

For now, the nine judges of the Texas court, though offering slightly varying rationales, were unanimous in saying that Mr. Medellin, who was convicted of participating in the rape and murder of two teenage girls in 1993, could not rely on the Vienna Convention to save him from execution.

(via Althouse)