This statement by the State Department is not true

This statement by the State Department is not true:

1. The United States government had an obligation to intervene in the
latest request to the Supreme Court for a Stay, which it failed and
refused to do.

2. The USG could have entered into an international executive agreement
with Mexico resolving this dispute one way or another, which then could
have been enforced against the State of Texas by the US Supreme Court
under the Belmont and Pink Cases.

Fab.


Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)
fboyle@law.uiuc.edu
(personal comments only)



Subject: US says it can't intervene in Mexican's
execution

US says it can't intervene in Mexican's execution
August 5, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US State Department insisted Tuesday that it
did all it could to stop the execution of a Mexican man by the state
of Texas but could not intervene, after UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged
Washington to stay the execution.

Kurtis Cooper, a department spokesman, said the federal government
had "numerous communications" with the office of Governor Rick Perry
and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles regarding the case of Jose
Ernesto Medellin.

"We wrote a letter to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to
request that it consider whether a failure to comply with the Vienna
Convention in Mr. Medellin's case resulted in an actual prejudice to
his conviction sentence," Cooper told AFP.

"This case presents a difficult situation," he said.

"We have an indisputable international law obligation that conflicts
with state law," he said. "The Supreme Court has ruled the president
has neither the constitutional power nor the legislative authority to
overturn the state rules."

Texas was poised to execute Medellin, 33, by lethal injection late
Tuesday for the 1993 rape and murder of two teenagers.

Mexico has complained that its nationals on death row in the United
States were not informed of their right to consular access and
assistance during trial, a right under the Vienna Convention.

Last month, the International Court of Justice instructed the US
authorities to do everything they could to stay the imminent
execution of five Mexicans, including Medellin.

But Texas has refused, arguing -- with the support of a March US
Supreme Court ruling -- that its state courts, which decided the
Medellin case, are not bound by the ICJ treaty.

That left the federal government with no legal tools to force Texas
to put off the execution.

The UN's Ban called on the US government to abide by the ICJ ruling.

"All decisions and orders of the International Court of Justice must
be respected by states," Ban warned in Mexico City where he was
attending the world AIDS conference.

"The United States should take every step to make sure the execution
does not take place," he added, saying he had taken all the necessary
steps to delay Medellin's execution, detailed in a letter to the
United States and that he was "confident" his demands would be accepted.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hE2q4JNMVAPWGFSBiCuYMro-Pccg