Texas executes Mexican killer
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a split vote last night, rejected his request for a reprieve.
HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Texas has executed Mexican-born condemned prisoner Jose Medellin for the rape and murder of two teenage girls 15 years ago.
The state carried out the execution late last night after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his request for a reprieve in a split vote.
The 33-year-old Medellin had claimed he was denied treaty-guaranteed help from the Mexican consulate when he was arrested.
Texas authorities say he never invoked his consular rights until four years after he was arrested. By then, he had been convicted and condemned for participating in the attack on 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena and 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman, both of Houston.
He and five fellow gang members attacked the girls as they walked home on a June night, raped and tortured them for an hour, then kicked and stomped them before using a belt and shoelaces to strangle them.
Their remains were found four days later. By then, Medellin had bragged to friends about the killings.
Medellin's attorneys say he was denied the protections of the Vienna Convention, which calls for foreign nationals who are arrested to have access to their home country's consular officials.
The International Court of Justice has said that Medellin and about 50 other Mexicans on death rows in the United States should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether the 1963 treaty was violated during their arrests. Medellin, who came to the United States at age 3 and grew up in Houston, is the first among them set to die.
President Bush asked states to review the cases, but the Supreme Court ruled in March that neither he nor the international court could force Texas to wait.
Gov. Rick Perry, Texas courts, and the Texas Attorney General's Office all said that the execution should go forward and that Medellin had had multiple legal reviews.
State officials noted that Medellin never invoked his consular rights under the Vienna Convention until some four years after he was convicted of capital murder.