| | |  Editorials | Issues | August 2008 
Lawyers for Jose Medellin Say Execution Violates Treaty
 Associated Press
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| | On Tuesday, Medellin, now 33, is set for execution in Huntsville for his role in two slayings 15 years ago. | | |
Houston — Testimony at his murder trial showed Jose Medellin made the first move, grabbing one of two teenage Houston girls as they walked home at night across a railroad bridge.
“Help me, Jennifer!” 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena cried out to her friend, 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman.
It was the start of a savage hourlong attack by Medellin, then 18, and five fellow gang members, who raped the girls and forced them to perform sex acts before beating then strangling them with a belt and shoelaces. It would be four days before their bodies, decomposing in the Houston heat, were found. By then Medellin already had boasted to friends about having “virgin's blood” on his underpants.
On Tuesday, Medellin, now 33, is set for execution in Huntsville for his role in the slayings 15 years ago.
The lethal injection, which would be the fifth this year in Texas and the first of two this week in the nation's most active capital punishment state, has attracted international attention with Medellin's lawyers arguing the Mexican-born convicted killer was not given legal courtesies allowed foreigners under international treaty.
The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, has said Medellin and some 50 other Mexicans on death rows around the nation should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether a 1963 treaty was violated during their arrests. Medellin is the first among them set to die. His attorneys contend he was denied the protections of the Vienna Convention, which calls for people arrested to have access to their home country's consular officials.
President Bush has asked states to review the cases, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year neither the president nor the international court can force Texas to wait. Medellin's supporters say either Congress or the Texas Legislature should be given a chance to pass a law setting up procedures for new hearings before he should be executed.
Gov. Rick Perry, the Texas courts and the state attorney general have said the execution should be carried out.
Medellin's lawyers Monday asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for a reprieve and for permission to file new appeals on his behalf. They also awaited word from the U.S. Supreme Court, which they asked Friday to stop the execution until legislation can be passed to formalize the case reviews.
Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Perry, said the legal maneuvers were attempts “to delay by throwing something against the wall and seeing if it will stick.”
The Texas Attorney General's Office on Monday urged the Supreme Court to reject the appeals, saying the execution “fully complies with international law” and noting that the justices already have ruled that the International Court of Justice's decisions are not U.S. law and not binding on American courts.
Also Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, in a 7-0 vote, refused Medellin's request to commute his sentence to life in prison. The board also turned down his request for a 240-day reprieve.
Donald Donovan, one of Medellin's lawyers, said the decision was disappointing.
“The board has failed to support the United States in fulfilling its international legal obligations,” Donovan said.
Medellin spent Monday with his parents and grandmother in the visiting area of death row at the Polunsky Unit outside Livingston. Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said prison officials made special arrangements allowing him to visit with his parents.
The couple had been prohibited from the Polunsky Unit for the past seven years after authorities learned they and other relatives had discussed a possible escape attempt during a 2001 visit with Medillin, Lyons said.
Medellin contends he never was advised by prosecutors or police of his right as a detained foreign national to seek consular assistance as required by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, depriving him of legal assistance that Mexico could have provided.
“That's a last-stop measure they're trying to use,” Mark Vinson, a now-retired former Harris County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Medellin, said Monday. “Mr. Medellin never raised that issue before the trial. In pre-trial he didn't raise the issue. And he didn't raise the issue during the trial.
“If he had raised the issue at his probable cause hearing, the court would have complied. And it was never raised.
“I've given a lot of thought to that,” Vinson said.
In the Supreme Court filings, Medellin's lawyers never mention the crime.
“It's kind of been lost a little bit,” said Randy Ertman, whose daughter was murdered. “It's no longer Jennifer and Elizabeth have been murdered. But there's nothing we can do about that. They don't care about Jennifer. They don't care about Elizabeth. They only care about saving Jose Medellin.”
Ertman planned to be in the death chamber Tuesday to see Medellin die.
He made a similar trip in 2006 when Derrick O'Brien became the first of the gang members executed for the crime. O'Brien said Medellin was at one end of a belt being pulled around Jennifer 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.
Vinson noted the sufficiency of the evidence, the makeup of jury and the trial judge's rulings were not being questioned in Medellin's appeals.
“The only challenge they raised has been whether or not he had an opportunity to speak with his consulate, which he did not raise,” Vinson said. “Some of his relatives testified at his punishment and no one even brought it up at that time. It was never an issue.”
At least six other Mexican nationals have been executed in Texas since 1982.
On Thursday, a Honduran man, Heliberto Chi, 29, is set to die for the slaying of a suburban Dallas clothing store manager during the robbery of a clothing store seven years ago. |
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