The José Medellín Case: When Moral Law and International Law Collides
Should outsiders stepping foot on foreign land be shielded or granted immunity for any atrocious act or heinous crime committed while in that alien territory? Does crime beget crime? When a balancing of interests emerges in the practice of criminal law, can one law be truly more dominant than another to merit the promulgation of a court decision? These are but some of the issues that linger in the mind long after justice had been meted in connection with the controversial case of José Ernesto Medellín.
Even for a heinous crime offender as Medellin, certain quarters questioned, and continue to question, if indeed justice was served when he faced capital punishment. The very grave offense he exacted on two innocent, unsuspecting Houston girls had, on the other hand, instigated a national outrage that reverberates to this day. Medellin, it will be recalled, was lethally injected after the US Supreme Court held him liable for the heartless gang rape and murder of two teenaged girls in Texas. The case, which was hyped by mainstream U.S. and other international media and, one can imagine, even utilized to boost propaganda campaigns to serve elite interests, goes down American history as one of the most vicious crimes perpetuated by foreigners in American soil. Not that the case, per se, actually needed to be hyped. Neither executive clemency nor lawyer arguments that the Medellin case would serve as precedent to a nation’s non-adherence to the rule of law could quash the Supreme Court decision of liability for the Mexican-born offender.
The issues connected with the Medellin case appear far more complicated and far-reaching, considering that Medellin was the first to be executed from a list that included 50 other Mexican nationals facing death sentence who sought refuge in an international treaty provision. Article 36 of the Vienna Convention stipulates that arrested foreigners are vested with a cloak of immunity and the right to have some access to or contact with their consulates in their home country following arrest/detention.
Not since the Supreme Court ruling that declared abortion a constitutionally protected basic right of women has there been a greater uproar than the international commotion created by the Jose Medellin case. Protection of life or respect for the fundamental right to live was clearly the violation in the Medellin case, and the Court somehow appeared to do right in its verdict in the eyes of many. A clear difference in Roe v. Wade is that even as countless groups protested the legal opinion upholding abortion as a woman’s fundamental right, the assailants presented strong arguments, even if, upon closer analysis, it is also the protection of life that is being curtailed. In both Medellin and Roe v. Wade, it would appear, public outrage is very much understandable. For in the end, it is the American values that majority still hold dear that is sacrificed. Indeed, being exposed to the raw edges of human existence can greatly influence people’s thinking and mindset on what is or what is not morally permissible. The fact that Jose Medellin was merely 18 when he, his brother, and other gang members who were less than 18 years of age at the time their crime was perpetuated does not diminish the gravity of the act.
What many adopting the legal stance may have contemplated on is where exactly does moral law end and international law begin? Many other cases have shown these often collide. In the end, though, it may all boil down to being human, assuming of course, that one is of sane mind. After all, who would not be infuriated when a convicted felon faces his victims closest of kin with nary an earnest trace of remorse even as he offers an apology coupled with a pre-execution statement that expresses his hope that his execution brings closure to the aggrieved kin?
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