Back in 1993, Jose Ernesto Medellin, a Mexican national who had spent most of his life in this country, participated in the gang rape and murder of two Texas girls, one 16 and the other 14.(The Week)(Brief article)

Back in 1993, Jose Ernesto Medellin, a Mexican national who had spent most of his life in this country, participated in the gang rape and murder of two Texas girls, one 16 and the other 14. The U.S. has signed a treaty, the Vienna Convention, according to which the police should have told Medellin that he could contact the Mexican consulate. The police didn't do that. U.S. courts found that this omission did not affect the outcome of his case, but the United Nations's court ruled that our courts should reconsider his appeal because of it. The U.N. court's decision does not have binding force: When the Senate ratified the Vienna Convention, it made clear that the convention was not supposed to create an individual right that could be asserted in American courts. But then President Bush stepped in, issuing a memorandum directing our courts to abide by the U.N.'s decision. Administration lawyers are urging the courts to obey his directive, ...