A United Nations court has found that the United States violated an international treaty and the court's own order when a Mexican national was executed last year in a Texas prison.
Jose Ernesto Medellin was executed by lethal injection for raping and murdering two girls aged 14 and 16.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a ruling Monday in an unusual case that pitted President Bush against his home state in a dispute over federal authority, local sovereignty and foreign treaties. Mexico had filed a formal complaint against U.S. state and federal officials
"The United States of America has breached the obligation incumbent upon it" to stop the execution, the ICJ announced in a unanimous opinion.
Jose Ernesto Medellin's death by lethal injection in August followed a 15-year legal dispute after his conviction for two brutal slayings.
At issue was whether Texas and other states had to give in to a demand by the president that the prisoner be allowed new hearings and resentencing. Bush made that request reluctantly after the international court in 2004 concluded that Medellin and about 50 other Mexicans on various states' death rows were improperly denied access to their consulate upon arrest, a violation of a treaty signed by the United States decades ago.
Here.
Jose Ernesto Medellin was executed by lethal injection for raping and murdering two girls aged 14 and 16.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a ruling Monday in an unusual case that pitted President Bush against his home state in a dispute over federal authority, local sovereignty and foreign treaties. Mexico had filed a formal complaint against U.S. state and federal officials
"The United States of America has breached the obligation incumbent upon it" to stop the execution, the ICJ announced in a unanimous opinion.
Jose Ernesto Medellin's death by lethal injection in August followed a 15-year legal dispute after his conviction for two brutal slayings.
At issue was whether Texas and other states had to give in to a demand by the president that the prisoner be allowed new hearings and resentencing. Bush made that request reluctantly after the international court in 2004 concluded that Medellin and about 50 other Mexicans on various states' death rows were improperly denied access to their consulate upon arrest, a violation of a treaty signed by the United States decades ago.
Here.
