This case hits rather close to home and I was wondering if it were possible
for us to discuss this rationally. I can sort of see both sides of the
issue.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5922356.html
"Texas. It's like a whole other country."
Coined to promote tourism, that wry verbal wink at the state's mythic
image
has assumed a literal meaning as Texas finds itself in defiance of the
United Nations, the Organization of American States and national leaders
in
its planned Tuesday execution of Mexican citizen Jose Medellin.
Unless the U.S. Supreme Court or Gov. Rick Perry acts in his favor,
Medellin, 33, will die for the 1993 rape-strangulation of two teenage
Houston girls, Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peņa.
Jennifer's father, Randy Ertman, dismissed international opposition to the
execution.
"It's just a last-ditch effort to keep the s***bag breathing," Ertman
said.
"He never should have been breathing in the first place. I don't care, I
really don't care what anyone thinks about this except Texas. I love
Texas.
Texas is in my blood."
At issue is Texas' refusal to hold a hearing to determine whether
Medellin's
defense was harmed by his inability to confer with Mexican consular
officials at the time of his arrest. A suspect's right to talk with his
consulate is guaranteed by the United Nations' Vienna Convention on
Consular
Relations, to which the United States is a party.
Medellin insists he told both Houston police and Harris County officers
that
he is a Mexican citizen. Prosecutors say the killer never informed
authorities of his nationality.
In a sworn statement, Medellin said he learned that the Mexican Consulate
could possibly help him in 1997, four years after his arrest. He
unsuccessfully petitioned the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on the issue
in 1998.
In 2004, the U.N.'s world court, responding to a Mexican lawsuit against
the
United States, ordered that hearings be held for Medellin and dozens of
other inmates denied their consular rights. In 2005, President Bush called
for the hearings to be held. Texas challenged the decision, and the
Supreme
Court determined that only Congress could mandate such action. In July,
the
world court ordered Medellin's execution be stayed.
Perry has argued Texas isn't bound by the decisions of international
courts
and that the state is determined to hold killers, regardless of their
nationality, responsible for their crimes.
Texas has rebuffed not only the U.N. and Bush, but Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and the judicial
arm
of the Organization of American States, which has demanded Medellin
receive
a new trial.
As politicians worried about the impact on Americans arrested in foreign
countries should Texas fail to honor the world court order, prison
officials
moved Medellin to a special death row cell, where he will be held under
constant video surveillance until he is driven to Huntsville's death
house.
A tragic tale
The big city wept when little Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peņa died.
Students at Waltrip High School, Jennifer was 14, and Elizabeth had just
turned 16. Their lives were filled with the things that occupy teenage
girls. Friends recalled Elizabeth, who was beginning to dabble with
makeup,
as a "social butterfly." Jennifer tried her hand at basketball before
concluding she wasn't cut out for athletics.
On June 24, 1993, the girls were at a party at a friend's apartment when
they realized the lateness of the hour. Following the railroad tracks
through T.C. Jester Park, they concluded, would shave 10 minutes off their
trip to Elizabeth's Oak Forest home.
As the girls made their way past a thicket near White Oak Bayou, they
stumbled onto the tail end of a drunken gang initiation. When they
blundered
into the group of youths, Medellin - 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighing
just
135 pounds - grabbed Elizabeth and flipped her to the ground. Jennifer,
drawn by Elizabeth's scream, turned to help and was herself captured.
As the teens cried and struggled, six gang members took turns raping them.
Finally, gang leader Peter Cantu told Medellin, "We're going to have to
kill
them."
Gang members Derrick O'Brien and Raul Villarreal looped a belt around
Jennifer's throat, pulling with such force that the belt broke. Cantu,
Medellin and Efrain Perez strangled Elizabeth with a shoelace. Then they
stomped on the girls' throats for good measure.
Four days later, police, acting on a tip from a gang member's brother,
found
the teens' bodies, badly decomposed in the summer heat.
The victims were identified through dental records.
Judge Cathy Cochran, a member of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals,
which
last week rejected his appeals, wrote that Medellin bragged to his friends
that the victims had been virgins until they were attacked by the gang.
"His written confession," Cochran wrote, "displayed a callous, cruel and
cavalier attitude toward the two girls that he had raped and helped to
murder. Surely no juror or judge will ever forget his words or his sordid
deeds."
O'Brien was first to be executed, going to his death in July 2006 with the
parting words: "I am sorry. I have always been sorry."
Cantu, also convicted of capital murder, awaits a death date.
Medellin, who grew up in poverty amid drug abuse and an unstable home
environment, twice refused to be interviewed for this story.
But on his Web site, posted by a Canadian anti-death penalty group, he
claims: "I'm where I am because I made an adolescent choice. That's it!
"My life is in black and white like old western movies," he wrote. "But
unlike the movies, the good guys don't always finish first."
'Uncaring and hateful'
This time, death penalty opponents believe, the sovereign state of Texas
has
gone too far.
"Most of our friends abroad have long since come to the conclusion that
this
country, on this topic, just doesn't get it," said Southern Methodist
University history professor Rick Halperin. "This state is seen as
uncaring
and hateful. And this case is just right on the top."
The Medellin case will solidify stereotypical views of the Lone Star
State,
said Halperin, president of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty
and former board chairman of Amnesty International USA.
Cochran, however, disagreed in her appeals court concurrence. "Some
societies may judge our death penalty barbaric," she wrote. "Most Texans,
however, consider death a just penalty in certain rare cir***stances. Many
Europeans disagree. So be it."
The politics of capital punishment aside, some legal observers worry that
the United States may suffer as a result of Texas' noncompliance with the
world court order.
"Outside of Texas this is a huge diplomatic misstep," said Columbia Law
School professor Sarah Cleveland. " ... Unfortunately, I doubt that the
international community is likely to brush this off as simply the actions
of
Texas. In the international community (and under all U.S. treaty
obligations) the United States is responsible for Texas' actions."
Wide-ranging effect
If the United States fails to observe its treaty commitments, said
Cleveland, co-director of the Human Rights Institute, other nations might
be
inclined to disregard agreements when they become inconvenient.
Affected could be treaties ranging from those mandating protection for
foreign nationals to nuclear nonproliferation.
Texas Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, a frequent traveler abroad, said he
fears Texas' noncompliance will put American military personnel and
civilians at risk.
In ruling that Bush could not unilaterally force states to hold hearings
to
consider Vienna Convention violations, the Supreme Court noted that power
lies in Congress.
Within weeks, U.S. Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., introduced such a bill.
It
is pending in the House Judiciary Committee and can't be enacted until
next
year.
allan.turner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Kisses,
CatNipped
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