Death Penalty
Jose Medellin Executed
death-penalty
on August 6, 2008 at 10:09 AM
In upholding the José Medellin execution the unsigned opinion of Supreme Court's 5-4 majority makes some strange arguments. First, they insist that:
"The beginning premise for any stay, and indeed for the assumption that Congress or the legislature might seek to intervene in this suit, must be that petitioner's confession was obtained unlawfully."
But the denial of Medellin's right to consular notification was not about his confession; it was about his right to adequate legal representation. What he got, without consular assistance, was pitifully inadequate, according to last month's Amnesty International report:
"According to his clemency petition, during the investigation and prosecution of José Medellín's case, his court-appointed lead lawyer was under a six-month suspension from practising law for acting unethically in another case. He continued to represent José Medellín while suspended. Prior to the trial, the lawyer was held in contempt of court and arrested for violating his suspension. Time that should have been spent preparing his client's defence went instead to preparing and filing a habeas corpus petition to keep himself out of jail. Records indicate that the only investigator for the defence spent a total of just eight hours on the case prior to the trial. The defence failed to oppose the selection of jurors who indicated that they would automatically impose the death penalty. José Medellín's lawyers called no witnesses during the guilt phase of the trial. At the sentencing phase, their presentation of mitigating evidence lasted less than two hours."
Decent lawyering, like the kind Medellin got once his government finally learned of his case, might have enabled him to present enough mitigating evidence to avoid a death sentence.
"An investigation funded by the Mexican Consulate has found that José Medellín grew up in an environment of abject poverty in Mexico and was exposed to gang violence after he came to Houston to join his parents when he was nine. It has also established that he suffered from depression, suicidal tendencies and alcohol dependency. If his trial lawyers had sought consular assistance, experts and investigators could have been retained by the Mexican Consulate to present the full range of mitigating evidence to the sentencing jury. In addition, consular monitoring of the case in the pre-trial stages could have exposed and remedied the inadequate legal representation that José Medellín was receiving."
Not only is this case not premised the validity of a confession, it is about much more than José Medellin. It is about the US honoring its international commitments, specifically the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations which provides the consular notification rights denied in Medellin's case. And, as a reminder to those who dismiss the importance of treaties, the US Constitution clearly states in Article VI.:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." (emphasis added)
In its March 2008 opinion on this case, the Supreme Court stated that it would be up to Congress to come up with a remedy that would bring the US into compliance with this treaty, by passing legislation to give the Vienna Convention domestic force. Congress has in fact since then introduced legislation to do precisely that, yet the Supreme Court majority still says this:
"And neither the President nor the Governor of the State of Texas has represented to us that there is any likelihood of congressional or state legislative action."
Followed by this in the very next paragraph:
"Congress has not progressed beyond the bare introduction of a bill in the four years since the ICJ ruling and the four months since our ruling."
Why is notification from the President about the "likelihood of congressional ... action" so important when it is clear from the very next paragraph that the Court knows that a bill has already been introduced? And why so dismissive of the "bare introduction of a bill" in just four months? Is the Court's majority not aware of how Congress works (particularly in an election year)?
And the idea of Congress considering a bill in the 4 years since the ICJ ruling but prior to the Court's March decision makes no sense at all. Neither Congress nor most other observers saw any need for that kind of implementing legislation, until the Court ruling in March altered the understanding of how these treaties are to be implemented.
Anyway, José Medellin has been executed. And tomorrow, Texas is scheduled to carrying out its next state killing. Heliberto Chi is a foreign national from Honduras.
Brian
DPAC
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Comments: 6
Debbie Kearns
(Homepage)
on August 6, 2008 at 10:57 AM
Thank you for the comments here. It was a sad night that Jose Medellin was killed, and now no one travelling around the world or staying abroad will protect their rights next time they travel on vacation. America is still in darkness now, and we are now struggling hard to find the light that may never come. People at the Find A Grave forums can have the last laugh all they want, but we will never be silenced. God is merciful, and I pray that Jose had made peace with him before he died. At least he offered forgiveness to the families of his murder victims, saying, "I'm sorry my actions caused you pain. I hope this brings you the closure that you seek. Never harbor hate." Now it leaves a hole in the hearts of Jose's family while the vengeance of the murder victims' families has been satisfied. May God forgive them as they are on the road to healing. Grant Jose, Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena eternal rest, O Lord, and may light unending shine on them. May their souls hopefully rest in peace.
on August 6, 2008 at 11:40 AM
We're all at a loss here-- I am hurt for José, his family, and the victims family-- at the same time I'm feeling so disillusioned as to how we define "justice".
I hope he's found his peace, and onwards to ending this horrific battle that is capital punishment.
I hope he's found his peace, and onwards to ending this horrific battle that is capital punishment.
Woman
on August 6, 2008 at 4:14 PM
Medellin was one of six teenagers arrested and charged with the gang rape and murders of Elizabeth Pena, 16, and Jennifer Ertman, 14. The two Houston girls, returning from a friend's house, took a shortcut home along some railroad tracks and stumbled on a group of teenagers drinking beer after initiating a new gang member. Evidence showed the girls were gang raped for more than an hour, then were kicked and beaten before being strangled. A red nylon belt was pulled so tight around Ertman's neck that the belt snapped. Four days later, the girls' bodies were found, decomposing and mummifying in 100-degree heat, culminating a frantic search by families and police under the glare of intense media coverage. A tip from the brother of one of the gang members led police to arrest Medellin and the others.
One of the gang members convicted for the slayings, Derrick O'Brien, was executed last year. O'Brien said Medellin was at one end of a belt being pulled around Ertman's neck as he yanked on the other. Two others, Efrain Perez and Raul Villarreal, had their death sentences commuted to life in prison when the Supreme Court barred executions for those who were 17 at the time of their crimes. Peter Cantu, described by authorities as ringleader, remains on death row. He does not have an execution date. The sixth person convicted, Medellin's brother, Vernancio, was 14 at the time and is serving a 40-year prison term.
In the legal frenzy to save Medellin, the fact that two girls were killed is being lost, said Randy Ertman, whose daughter was one of the victims and who looked forward to attending Medellin's execution. "They've forgotten Jennifer and Elizabeth," he said. "They care only about saving Jose Medellin. This is not about vengeance. This is not about a deterrent or about closure. It's about the punishment. Everybody wants me to say closure or vengeance. I'm never going to have closure. It's just a miracle word that's going to make us feel good, but it ain't going to happen."
Texas officials acknowledged Medellin was not told he could ask for help from Mexican diplomats but argued he forfeited the right because he never raised the issue until four years after his conviction. In any case, the diplomats' intercession wouldn't have made any difference in the outcome of the case, they said.
State and federal courts rejected Medellin's claim when he raised it on appeal. "Concluding that the World Court cannot force Texas to release convicted murderers, last March the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Medellin's claims and found that he would have received the same sentence with or without consular notification," said Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the Texas Attorney General's Office.
Medellin, who came to the United States at age 3, speaks, reads and writes English. He gave a written confession. "I am a Mexican through and through," Medellin said on an anti-death penalty Web site where inmates seek pen pals. "I don't want sympathy or pity, I'd rather have your anger. Don't feel sorry for me. I'm where I'm at because I made an adolescent choice."
Mexico, which has no death penalty, initially sued the United States in the World Court in 2003. Mexico and other opponents of capital punishment have sought to use the court to fight for foreigners facing execution in the U.S. Medellin would not be the first foreign national executed in Texas. Two years ago, infamous train-hopping serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz, who became known as "The Railroad Killer," became at least the sixth Mexican executed in Texas.
"The law is clear: Texas is bound not by the World Court, but by the U.S. Supreme Court, which reviewed this matter and determined that this convicted murderer's execution shall proceed," Strickland said of Medellin's case.
One of the gang members convicted for the slayings, Derrick O'Brien, was executed last year. O'Brien said Medellin was at one end of a belt being pulled around Ertman's neck as he yanked on the other. Two others, Efrain Perez and Raul Villarreal, had their death sentences commuted to life in prison when the Supreme Court barred executions for those who were 17 at the time of their crimes. Peter Cantu, described by authorities as ringleader, remains on death row. He does not have an execution date. The sixth person convicted, Medellin's brother, Vernancio, was 14 at the time and is serving a 40-year prison term.
In the legal frenzy to save Medellin, the fact that two girls were killed is being lost, said Randy Ertman, whose daughter was one of the victims and who looked forward to attending Medellin's execution. "They've forgotten Jennifer and Elizabeth," he said. "They care only about saving Jose Medellin. This is not about vengeance. This is not about a deterrent or about closure. It's about the punishment. Everybody wants me to say closure or vengeance. I'm never going to have closure. It's just a miracle word that's going to make us feel good, but it ain't going to happen."
Texas officials acknowledged Medellin was not told he could ask for help from Mexican diplomats but argued he forfeited the right because he never raised the issue until four years after his conviction. In any case, the diplomats' intercession wouldn't have made any difference in the outcome of the case, they said.
State and federal courts rejected Medellin's claim when he raised it on appeal. "Concluding that the World Court cannot force Texas to release convicted murderers, last March the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Medellin's claims and found that he would have received the same sentence with or without consular notification," said Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the Texas Attorney General's Office.
Medellin, who came to the United States at age 3, speaks, reads and writes English. He gave a written confession. "I am a Mexican through and through," Medellin said on an anti-death penalty Web site where inmates seek pen pals. "I don't want sympathy or pity, I'd rather have your anger. Don't feel sorry for me. I'm where I'm at because I made an adolescent choice."
Mexico, which has no death penalty, initially sued the United States in the World Court in 2003. Mexico and other opponents of capital punishment have sought to use the court to fight for foreigners facing execution in the U.S. Medellin would not be the first foreign national executed in Texas. Two years ago, infamous train-hopping serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz, who became known as "The Railroad Killer," became at least the sixth Mexican executed in Texas.
"The law is clear: Texas is bound not by the World Court, but by the U.S. Supreme Court, which reviewed this matter and determined that this convicted murderer's execution shall proceed," Strickland said of Medellin's case.
Helena
on August 6, 2008 at 6:47 PM
I speak as a Mexican citizen (born and raised in Mexico), as a resident of Texas, and as a labor lawyer who will work to get Latin American immigrants paid for their honest work in this state.
For the very first time, I am entirely shocked by a stance taken by Amnesty International.
You entirely fail to consider:
1) That Medellín voluntarily made a written confession to his heinous crime;
2) That Medellín did not raise his Mexican citizenship nor his consular privileges under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations until four years after his trial and conviction;
3) That no other Texas inmate, citizen or foreigner, would have been entitled to raise such error post-conviction in order to grant a new trial;
4) That even if the issue had been raised, the outcome of the case would still stand, with the question of a fair defense before the Texas criminal courts and appellate courts, including the United States Supreme Court, quite doubtfully having been any better for Medellín with access to Mexican counsel;
5) That Medellín’s constitutional rights to counsel and rights against self-incrimination were intact; and
6) That the VCCR treaty which has drawn so much attention, for all the weight it might otherwise bear, lacked the essential power to be binding on the sovereign, individual states of the Union: it was never and has never been enacted into federal law by the United States Congress. President Bush should have sought the remedy by urging the Legislative, not the Judiciary, to take such steps to enact the VCCR convention into federal law.
As to your other claims:
Medellín was not represented by only one attorney. A timely remedy for all grounds of inadequate representation cited in your note would have lied in Medellín’s requesting that the court appoint different counsel, not in raising error four years post-conviction. Consular monitoring would not have changed this. Yes, fatal error can result from inadequate representation and ineffective assistance of counsel, but it will only be granted only when there is sufficient evidence that the outcome of the trial would have been different. Again, consular monitoring would not have changed this. And to say that Medellín had a totality of inadequate representation before the Texas courts is otherwise an insult to all other competent attorneys that spent their time, legal skills, and creativity doing anything and everything possible to stay his execution.
Five years ago when Medellín was busy making appeals for clemency, I taught adolescents who grew up in an environment of abject poverty and were exposed to gang violence. Many of them vented by playing a good game of basketball or writing slam poetry. Four or five of them took up to the streets and painted graffiti. None of them went to the local train tracks to rape, sodomize, and kill young women. And the millions in this country who suffer from depression, suicidal tendencies, and alcoholism? A great majority of them deal with their illnesses by seeking appropriate treatment options (often even available through nonprofit help to those of lower means). A few mentally ill (compared to the rest of the clinically mentally ill), mostly those suffering from severe schizophrenic delusions, do commit heinous crimes. They are mainly the ones who can at least raise an affirmative defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. The majority of the clinically mentally ill do not go to the local train tracks to rape, sodomize, and kill young women. Medellín was legally an adult and fully aware of and lucid during the commission of his crimes.
As for the Mexican government, it quickly and conveniently forgets and fails to acknowledge that there are thousands and thousands of Mexican citizens who also live in the United States who lead purposeful, working lives. I am one such citizen. We paid the taxes that sustained Medellín during his years in Huntsville. We paid the taxes that afforded him the opportunity to be represented by counsel at all times, for free. We paid the taxes that allowed Medellín the privileges of a radio in death row and of posting on a Canadian anti-death penalty website to look for a pen pal. We paid the taxes that fed Medellín his last meal, which he had the luxury to choose. We paid the taxes that afforded him, once the decision was made by a jury that he should die, that he be with his family at the time of his death and at least die like one who goes to sleep and never wakes up. A death very much unlike the one he gave his victims.
There are crimes so horrible, so beastly, and so violently cruel, that they go beyond any hope and deservedness of reformation and rehabilitation for those who commit them. It shocks the mind how years of Medellín’s facile entitlements to his rights (which again, were intact for purposes of a state conviction or otherwise not timely claimed in the legal process) and the rush of international attention quickly effaced the hours of torture and slow death to which Medellín condemned Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena.
For the very first time, I am entirely shocked by a stance taken by Amnesty International.
You entirely fail to consider:
1) That Medellín voluntarily made a written confession to his heinous crime;
2) That Medellín did not raise his Mexican citizenship nor his consular privileges under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations until four years after his trial and conviction;
3) That no other Texas inmate, citizen or foreigner, would have been entitled to raise such error post-conviction in order to grant a new trial;
4) That even if the issue had been raised, the outcome of the case would still stand, with the question of a fair defense before the Texas criminal courts and appellate courts, including the United States Supreme Court, quite doubtfully having been any better for Medellín with access to Mexican counsel;
5) That Medellín’s constitutional rights to counsel and rights against self-incrimination were intact; and
6) That the VCCR treaty which has drawn so much attention, for all the weight it might otherwise bear, lacked the essential power to be binding on the sovereign, individual states of the Union: it was never and has never been enacted into federal law by the United States Congress. President Bush should have sought the remedy by urging the Legislative, not the Judiciary, to take such steps to enact the VCCR convention into federal law.
As to your other claims:
Medellín was not represented by only one attorney. A timely remedy for all grounds of inadequate representation cited in your note would have lied in Medellín’s requesting that the court appoint different counsel, not in raising error four years post-conviction. Consular monitoring would not have changed this. Yes, fatal error can result from inadequate representation and ineffective assistance of counsel, but it will only be granted only when there is sufficient evidence that the outcome of the trial would have been different. Again, consular monitoring would not have changed this. And to say that Medellín had a totality of inadequate representation before the Texas courts is otherwise an insult to all other competent attorneys that spent their time, legal skills, and creativity doing anything and everything possible to stay his execution.
Five years ago when Medellín was busy making appeals for clemency, I taught adolescents who grew up in an environment of abject poverty and were exposed to gang violence. Many of them vented by playing a good game of basketball or writing slam poetry. Four or five of them took up to the streets and painted graffiti. None of them went to the local train tracks to rape, sodomize, and kill young women. And the millions in this country who suffer from depression, suicidal tendencies, and alcoholism? A great majority of them deal with their illnesses by seeking appropriate treatment options (often even available through nonprofit help to those of lower means). A few mentally ill (compared to the rest of the clinically mentally ill), mostly those suffering from severe schizophrenic delusions, do commit heinous crimes. They are mainly the ones who can at least raise an affirmative defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. The majority of the clinically mentally ill do not go to the local train tracks to rape, sodomize, and kill young women. Medellín was legally an adult and fully aware of and lucid during the commission of his crimes.
As for the Mexican government, it quickly and conveniently forgets and fails to acknowledge that there are thousands and thousands of Mexican citizens who also live in the United States who lead purposeful, working lives. I am one such citizen. We paid the taxes that sustained Medellín during his years in Huntsville. We paid the taxes that afforded him the opportunity to be represented by counsel at all times, for free. We paid the taxes that allowed Medellín the privileges of a radio in death row and of posting on a Canadian anti-death penalty website to look for a pen pal. We paid the taxes that fed Medellín his last meal, which he had the luxury to choose. We paid the taxes that afforded him, once the decision was made by a jury that he should die, that he be with his family at the time of his death and at least die like one who goes to sleep and never wakes up. A death very much unlike the one he gave his victims.
There are crimes so horrible, so beastly, and so violently cruel, that they go beyond any hope and deservedness of reformation and rehabilitation for those who commit them. It shocks the mind how years of Medellín’s facile entitlements to his rights (which again, were intact for purposes of a state conviction or otherwise not timely claimed in the legal process) and the rush of international attention quickly effaced the hours of torture and slow death to which Medellín condemned Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena.
Debbie Kearns
(Homepage)
on August 7, 2008 at 1:22 PM
Why does everyone, including Helena, insult us with retaliation and claims that Jose was a U.S. citizen from Mexico and never needed VCCR treaty claims, that he lied about his rights to adequate legal representation being violated, that he was aware of the crimes and must die, and that he is now burning in hell with his scumbag cronies for all eternity? If all this pollution from hateful lies and comments from racist death penalty supporters keeps up, then we ALL deserve to have our rights taken away and violated. We ALL deserve to die! :*(
Jackson
on August 7, 2008 at 3:59 PM
Well stated, Helena. Jennifer and Elizabeth are the true victims here...they had no choice in the matter. They are the ones whose names should be remembered. Medellin chose his fate.
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