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Bush, Texas clash over death sentence

By Mark Sherman, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Texas wants President Bush to get out of the way of the state's plan to execute a Mexican for the brutal killing of two teenage girls.

Bush, who presided over 152 executions as governor of Texas, wants to halt the execution of Jose Ernesto Medellin in what has become a confusing test of presidential power that the Supreme Court ultimately will sort out.

The president wants to enforce a decision by the International Court of Justice that found the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexican-born prisoners violated their rights to legal help as outlined in the 1963 Vienna Convention.

That is the same court Bush has since said he plans to ignore if it makes similar decisions affecting state criminal laws.

"The president does not agree with the ICJ's interpretation of the Vienna Convention," the administration said in arguments filed with the court. This time, though, the U.S. agreed to abide by the international court's decision because ignoring it would harm American interests abroad, the government said.
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Texas argues strenuously that neither the international court nor Bush, his Texas ties notwithstanding, has any say in Medellin's case.

Ted Cruz, the Texas solicitor general, said the administration's position would "allow the president to set aside any state law the president believes is inconvenient to international comity."

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case Wednesday.

Medellin was born in Mexico but spent much of his childhood in the United States. He was 18 in June 1993, when he and other members of the Black and Whites gang in Houston encountered Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena on a railroad trestle as the girls were taking a shortcut home.

Ertman, 14, and Pena, 16, were gang-raped and strangled. Their bodies were found four days later.

Medellin was arrested a few days after the killings. He was told he had a right to remain silent and have a lawyer present, but the police did not tell him that he could request assistance from the Mexican consulate under the 1963 treaty.

Medellin gave a written confession. He was convicted of murder in the course of a sexual assault, a capital offense in Texas. A judge sentenced him to death in October 1994.

Medellin did not raise the lack of assistance from Mexican diplomats during his trial or sentencing. When he did claim his rights had been violated, Texas and federal courts turned him down because he had not objected at his trial.

Then, in 2003, Mexico sued the United States in the International Court of Justice in The Hague on behalf of Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on death row in the U.S. who also had been denied access to their country's diplomats following their arrests.

Mexico has no death penalty. Mexico and other opponents of capital punishment have sought to use the court, also known as the World Court, to fight for foreigners facing execution in the U.S.

The international court ruled for Mexico in 2004, saying the sentences and convictions should be reviewed by U.S. courts.

Medellin's case was rejected by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal. While it was pending in Washington, Bush issued a memo to his attorney general declaring that state courts must enforce the international court's ruling.

Two weeks after the memo, Bush said the U.S. was withdrawing from an international accord that lets the world court have the final say when citizens claim they were illegally denied access to their diplomats when they are jailed abroad.

The treaty had been used by the United States in its lawsuit against Iran for taking Americans hostages in 1979.

The Supreme Court weighed in next, dismissing Medellin's case while state courts reviewed Bush's order. Texas courts again ruled against Medellin, saying Bush overstepped his authority by intruding into the affairs of the independent judiciary.

In April, the Surpeme Court stepped in for a second time, putting Bush and the state he governed on opposite sides and setting up an unusual alliance of interests.

Foreign inmates on death rows in California, Florida, Texas and up to a dozen other states could be affected by the outcome.

Four of Medellin's fellow gang members also received the death penalty and one, Sean O'Brien, was executed last year. Two others had their death sentences commuted to life in prison in 2005 when the Supreme Court barred executions for those who were age 17 at the time of their crimes. Another defendant does not have an execution date.

A sixth participant, Medellin's brother, Vernancio, was 14 at the time. He was tried as a juvenile and is serving 40 years in prison.

Ertman's parents said they want to see the older Medellin brother put to death, pointing out in court papers that his case has been going on longer than their daughter lived.

The case is Medellin v. Texas, 06-984.

Smile -- You're on Social Security!

By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, October 16, 2007; Page A02

When it comes to the nation's finances, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling is Public Enemy No. 1.

Her offense: being born.

Specifically, being born on Jan. 1, 1946, just a tick after midnight. That made her the first member of the 80 million-strong baby-boom generation, which, starting next year, will begin to bankrupt the nation by crashing the Medicare and Social Security systems. To tout this happy "milestone," the Social Security Administration called a news conference yesterday and invited cameras to film Casey-Kirschling signing up for benefits.

"I think I'm just lucky to be at the top of the boom," said the retired schoolteacher. "I'm blessed to be able to take my Social Security now."

No kidding. As the boomers retire, Social Security will go into the red in 2017 and become insolvent 24 years later, according to the system's trustees. Medicare, meanwhile, starts bleeding in 2013 and goes under in 2019.

Fixing the two would require Medicare and Social Security benefits to be cut immediately by 51 percent and 13 percent, respectively, perhaps by raising retirement ages. And that's a nonstarter for Casey-Kirschling's generation. "Why should boomers who have earned it and who may need that extra support in their retirement -- for medicine, for food, for whatever -- why should they wait if they really don't have to?" she asked.

"That's exactly right," concurred Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue, standing at Casey-Kirschling's side. "And I think we ought to cut Kathy a little bit of a break here."

Yes, let's. It's not her fault that, ever since a writer for Money magazine found her on the eve of her 40th birthday in 1985, she has been a symbol of her generation. If anything, the ones to blame for the entitlement problems are the boomer presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and all the boomers in Congress who have put off the painful changes everybody knows will be needed.

Commissioner Astrue, also a boomer, spent much of the news conference whistling past the graveyard of entitlement insolvency.

"There's no reason to have any immediate panic," he announced. "This president, everybody running for president, pretty much everybody in Congress, all accept that there's an issue."

Astrue said he expects Social Security to be fixed before his term as commissioner ends in 2013. And even if not, he added: "It's not catastrophic. . . . Some of the nuclear-winter scenarios that you hear people talking about, really there isn't a factual basis for that."

"What makes you confident?" asked Bloomberg News's Brian Faler.

I spent a fair amount of time talking to senior people in the White House, talking to people in Congress," Astrue explained. "There is an acknowledgment that they have to step up and do it."

Oh? "We're not seeing that," WJLA's Rebecca Cooper advised the commissioner. "What did they tell you?"

"When you're behind closed doors," the commissioner asserted, "there's a real expectation that it's going to happen."

Cooper tried again. "You as the leader on this -- what are you backing?"

"Well, uh, I -- I'm flattered by the assumption of your question," the commissioner said, but "Secretary Paulson has the lead." (That would be Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.)

"What do you recommend?"

"Well, I'm recommending what Secretary Paulson knows I'm recommending to him, but I'm not going to share that now."

So, the Social Security commissioner has secret ideas for fixing the system and lawmakers secretly want to take action? No wonder the members of Generation X -- born after 1964 -- are more likely to believe in UFOs than in receiving their Social Security checks.

Casey-Kirschling, speaking for the boomers, counseled confidence. "I have great hope," she said, that Social Security will be repaired for "my children's generation and certainly my grandchildren's."

Cooper, a Gen X-er, asked Casey-Kirschling about that famous UFO poll. "Why do you have so much confidence?"

"I always like to have my glass half full," she explained.

The first boomer, who lives on Maryland's Eastern Shore, opened her eyes wide with surprise as she entered yesterday's event at the National Press Club and saw all the TV cameras. She put on her reading glasses, then pointed and clicked her way through the online application while television recorded her every mouse movement. "A fun experience," she pronounced when she finished, then went on to explain why she was applying for early Social Security benefits.

"I'm going to take it now because I can take it now," Casey-Kirschling reasoned. "I'm thrilled to think that after all these years I'm getting paid back the money I put in."

For those who will follow the boomers into retirement, it had the faint ring of a taunt.