May 26, 2005
Bush Caves To
Mexican Murder Lobby, Orders Retrial For Jose
Medellin
The Supreme Court recently
"dismissed as improvidently granted" a petition
for certiorari in the case of
Medellin vs. Dretke. The case will now be
retried in Texas state court.
Medellin is important
because it involves
international law—specifically a
convention that requires the authorities to notify
the appropriate Consulate when a criminal alien is
arrested. Nowadays in the U.S., that mostly means the
Mexican Consulate.
The World Court has
criticized the United States for not always
notifying the Consul in these cases. The theory is that
the Consul could get a better lawyer for the killer, and
perhaps help him get away with murder. There is actually
a large, well funded, get-away-with-murder
lobby:
“Medellin was supported in his appeal by dozens of
countries, legal groups and human rights organizations,
as well as former American diplomats and the European
Union. Much of the international community is opposed to
capital punishment, with the execution of Mexican
nationals in Texas a particularly touchy point.” [Court
Dismisses Death Row Rights Appeal, By Hope Yen,
Washington Post, May 23, 2005]
As a result of the World Court
decision, the Bush Administration has submissively told
the states to do a retrial for the foreign killers whose
Consuls weren't notified.
The tendency of
rights groups to help people
get away with murder is a longtime complaint of
conservatives. These groups also tend to concentrate on
the technicalities of, say, Consular notification, and
forget both the victims, still dead, and the killer.
Here's Medellin in his
own words:
“My
name is Jose Medellin, I am currently being held on
Death Row, in the State that is at the top of the list
for Death Row population, 453, executions this year: 26,
as of 9/14/99. The State and government that also
executes its children, its
retarded, its poor. This state is the
Lone Star State of Texas!
“I am a
Mexican national. I came to Texas as a young boy along
with the rest of my family. Not like many that are not
proud of their country and want to get away. But just
took a chance and
opportunity at a brighter future. I am a Mexican
through and through!...
“I
dropped out of school in the 9th grade,
not because I couldn't handle the work, because if
you give me the time of day, you'll see that I've quite
intelligent.
“I had
a plan, get my
GED and go home to join the
Mexican military, would have
joined here, but I'm a Mexican, not a traitor :- ) I
had everything in order, but as I said, the world takes
twists and turns when it gets ready to, no matter if you
are ready for the move.
“Don't
feel sorry for me. I'm where I'm at because I made an
adolescent choice. That's it!
“Then
after that I'll be willing to tell you who the boy was
that got himself arrested for capital murder. That way
you can have a clear understanding of how far I have
come.”
Here's
what Medellin did:
“On the evening of June
24, 1993, Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16,
left a social gathering at a friend’s apartment in
Houston. They were taking a shortcut home through the
woods, when they encountered Jose Medellin and other
members of the so-called ‘Black and White’ gang. All six
gang members were engaged in a gang initiation rite for
Raul Villareal. The gang had spent the evening
drinking and
"jumping in" Villareal, requiring him to fight all
the other members until he lost consciousness.
After stumbling across
the Black and White gang, each girl was repeatedly
raped by the gang for the next hour. The girls were
then strangled, beaten, and kicked to death.
That crime, which he doesn't deny,
is the "adolescent choice" he made, and why he
was sentenced to death.
One blogger
pointed out that the Supreme Court, which was
thinking of letting Jose Medellin get away with this
murder on the grounds of insufficient consular access,
had already let two of his accomplices in the same rapes
and murders escape the death penalty because they were
under 18 at the time of the murder.
My question: why is the
Mexican Government trying to save Medellin’s life?
It's true that Mexico has abolished
capital punishment, but that's possibly because the
massively
corrupt governments can't be trusted with that
power.
Helpful hint to Vicente Fox:
assisting Mexican nationals who've committed murder get
away with it is likely to make your campaign to get the
U.S. to amnesty illegal aliens less popular.
This is especially true if people
start realizing how many of the foreign national
murderers are from Mexico.
While there are
killers from 32 countries on death row, most
countries just have one killer. Mexico has 54.
(With
El Salvador the
runner-up at 7)
It's
not clear who won in Medellin vs. Dretke. The
actual murderer will probably get a new trial in Texas,
thanks to
President Bush. He could be convicted again.
But it is clear that America is
losing.
