Bush and the World Court vs. Texas: President Bush is supporting the World Court's effort to exert influence over a Texas state court decision. How will the case's outcome affect states' rights and U.S. independence?(JUDICIARY)

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The fate of Jose Ernesto Medellin and 50 other Mexicans facing the death penalty for horrible crimes committed in our country has become an issue involving the independence of the United States. And President Bush has expressed a willingness to compromise that hard-won independence by favoring World Court interference in the Medellin case.

In 1993, Medellin participated in the brutal gang rape and murder of two Houston teenagers. He later confessed, and he and four others were convicted in 1994 of capital murder and sentenced to death. But 14 years later, he and 50 others (on death rows in four states) are still in prison after numerous appeals. In 2003, Mexico sued the United States in the World Court contending that Medellin's right to receive legal assistance from the Mexican consul had been denied. The World Court agreed and has told the United States to cease plans to execute him.

The International Court of Justice, widely known as the World Court, was created at the founding of the United Nations as the world body's high court for resolving international disputes. Located in The Hague, the World Court's 2004 ruling in the Medellin case held that the United States had ignored a long-standing Vienna Convention on Consular Relations to which it was a party. In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in an appeal on behalf of Medellin that any rights under the Vienna Convention did not apply in his case because of limits Congress had placed on prisoner access to federal courts.

The Supreme Court ruling notwithstanding, President Bush announced in 2005 that he wanted Texas to comply with the World Court's ruling by convening new hearings. He claimed, amazingly, that his opinion was consistent with his "constitutionally based foreign affairs power." There seems to be no end to Mr. Bush's desire to build the power of the executive branch.

A Texas court did review Medellin's claims and, in November 2006, Texas Judge Michael Keasler wrote for his concurring colleagues when he stated that Mr. Bush had "exceeded his constitutional authority by intruding into the independent powers" of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Speaking for that court, Judge Keasler added that the sentence given to Medellin should be carried out. Nevertheless, lawyers for Medellin appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court again, and the nation's highest court, after hearing their appeal, sent the matter back to Texas for reconsideration. Texas did not back down.

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