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 Editorials | Issues | October 2007 
Bush Reverses Stance on Execution of Foreign National
 Sheldon Alberts - CanWest
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 |  | Bush's order directing Texas to comply with the international court ruling is seen as an attempt to impose presidential authority over decisions made by state legislatures and courts. |  | |
In the months before Texas executed Canadian Stanley Faulder in June 1999, George W. Bush made it crystal clear what he thought about outsiders who challenged his state's right to carry out the death penalty.
"Foreigners can't expect to get away with murder in the state of Texas," said Bush, then the governor of Texas.
That was then, this is now.
In a surprise legal turnabout, President Bush intervened with the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday to save the life of a Mexican citizen facing the death penalty in Texas, claiming his execution would violate international law.
The legal principles in the case are almost identical to those Bush rejected when the Canadian government appealed for clemency on behalf of Faulder, a 61-year-old Alberta man who was executed eight years ago for murdering an elderly Texas oil matriarch.
In oral arguments before the Supreme Court Wednesday, Bush administration lawyers said that Texas cannot execute Jose Ernesto Medellin for the rapes and murders of two teenage girls because state authorities failed to notify him of his Vienna Convention rights to contact Mexican consular officials after his arrest.
U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement argued that Texas must adhere to a 2004 decision by the International Court of Justice, which found that Texas violated Medellin's rights to consular access. The ICJ, also known as the World Court, ordered the U.S. to review Medellin's conviction and sentence.
After Texas initially balked, Bush personally intervened by issuing a presidential order in February 2005, instructing the state to comply with the ICJ ruling.
"The president's role is critically important," Clement told the justices.
In a prior written brief to the court, the administration argued that any rejection of the ICJ ruling would "place the United States in breach of its international law obligation ... and frustrate the president's judgment that foreign policy interests are best served by giving effect to that decision."
Bush's position in the Medellin case stands in stark contrast to his views as governor of Texas, when he oversaw the executions of Faulder and 151 other death row inmates.
Faulder, originally from Jasper, Alta., was executed for the 1975 stabbing death of 75-year-old Inez Phillips, a widow from a wealthy oil family in Gladewater, Texas.
Although Faulder was not notified of his consular rights at the time - and Canadian officials never learned of his 1978 conviction until 1992 - a Texas review board determined the oversight was a "harmless error."
Bush turned aside appeals from then-foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy to grant Faulder a reprieve because of the consular rights violation.
The only issue for Bush at the time was whether Faulder killed Phillips.
"People can't just come into our state and cold-bloodedly murder somebody. That's unacceptable, regardless of nationality," Bush said at the time.
One major difference in the cases of Faulder and Medellin is that, unlike the Mexican government, Canada was never able to challenge the actions of Texas authorities before the ICJ.
Sandra Babcock, an anti-death penalty lawyer who represented Faulder in 1999 and now represents Mexico in Medellin's case, explained that Canada is not party to an optional protocol of the Vienna Convention on consular relations that gives the ICJ jurisdiction to resolve disputes over the interpretation of the treaty.
"Since Canada is not a party to the optional protocol, it could not take Faulder's case to the ICJ."
Bush's decision to appeal the Medellin case to the Supreme Court has infuriated the families of his victims and conservatives in Texas.
"Our daughters are just pawns in a game that we have no control over," Randy Ertman, the father of slain Jennifer Ertman, then aged 14, told Fox News. The second victim was Elizabeth Pena, 16.
Conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham called the Supreme Court appeal "a total insult to states' rights, victims' rights, and American sovereignty."
Throughout his presidency, Bush has sought to expand presidential powers over Congress. In this instance, his order directing Texas to comply with the international court ruling is seen as an attempt to impose presidential authority over decisions made by state legislatures and courts.
Texas argues that the international court has no jurisdiction over state courts, and that Bush has no constitutional authority to order state courts to review Medellin's case.
Only a year after the ICJ ruled in the Medellin case, the U.S. withdrew from the Vienna Convention protocol that required it to comply with the court's decision. |
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