Mexican’s death row case at high court

WASHINGTON — President Bush and Texas, the state he once led, were on opposite sides of a Supreme Court dispute Wednesday over the role of international law and claims of executive power in the case of a Mexican on death row for rape and murder.

The justices engaged in a spirited discussion of who gets the final say in whether Texas courts must give Jose Ernesto Medellin a new hearing because local police never notified Mexican diplomats that he had been arrested, in violation of an international treaty.

An international court ruled in 2004 that the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on death row around the United States violated the 1963 Vienna Convention, which provides that people arrested abroad should have access to their home country’s consular officials. The International Court of Justice, also known as the world court, said the Mexican prisoners should have new court hearings to determine whether the violation affected their cases.

Bush, who oversaw 152 executions as Texas governor, disagreed with the decision. But he said it must be carried out by state courts because the United States had agreed to abide by the world court’s rulings in such cases. The administration argued that the president’s declaration is reason enough for Texas to grant Medellin a new hearing.

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