Texas defies Hague and executes José Medellín
This article is more than 15 years oldMexican man at centre of international legal dispute is executed in Texas for rape and murder in 1993A Mexican man at the centre of an international legal dispute has been executed in Texas for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl in 1993.
While protestors both for and against the death penalty demonstrated outside the Huntsville Unit near Houston last night, José Medellín, 33, died after being given a lethal injection.
The execution came just before 10pm shortly after the US supreme court denied a last request for a reprieve.
Pleas for a stay came from Washington, Mexico and the international court of justice (ICJ).
They had all urged Texas not to execute Medellín until a hearing had been held to determine whether or not his original trial was sound.
The state's Republican governor, Rick Perry, rebutted attempts to delay off the execution arguing that the state's courts were not bound by the rulings of the ICJ.
The ICJ in the Hague had ordered Medellín's case and those of 50 other Mexicans on death row be reviewed because none had been informed of their right to consular assistance.
The US state department said it was powerless to delay the execution, noting that the country's supreme court had ruled in March that president Bush did not have the authority to intervene in the case.
The Mexican government has now sent a note of protest to the US state department, expressing "its concern for the precedent that (the execution) may create for the rights of Mexican nationals who may be detained in that country."
Medellín and five other teenage boys in his Houston street gang took part in the rape and murder of two girls, Elizabeth Pena, 16, and Jennifer Ertman, 14, in 1993.
Medellín, who was born in Mexico but moved to the US as a child, was convicted of Pena's murder and has never contested the conviction.
Two other members of the gang were also sentenced to die. Two had their sentences commuted to life in prison. The sixth, Medellín's brother, Vernacio, is serving a 40-year sentence.
Medellín's case has become the focal point of the dispute between Mexico, which does not have the death penalty, and the US over whether or not some Mexicans on death row were denied fair trials because of the lack of consular access.
The 1963 Vienna Convention, which both Mexico and the US signed, requires foreigners accused of crimes to be given that opportunity.
Over the last five days, Medellín's lawyers tried to stop the execution by arguing to the Supreme Court that it should be put off until Congress had a chance to pass pending legislation that would require a review of similar cases.
They argued that Medellín would be deprived of life without due process if he died before Congress acted.
But the court decided 5-4 that the possibility of congressional action was too remote to justify a stay.
One member of the supreme court, justice Stephen Breyer wrote however, that to permit the execution would place the US "irremediably in violation of international law and breaks our treaty promises."
Mexico, which opposes the death penalty, has used the Vienna convention on consular relations to try to block the executions of Medellín and 50 other Mexicans in the US.
Twice in the last five years, the ICJ has said hearings should be held to determine if the 51 trials were fair.
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