Bush Administration Subordinates U.S. Law

Date: October 15, 2007

By: Rep. Trent Franks

WorldNetDaily 
 
George W. Bush is more than a president to me – he is a personal friend. I believe, however, that his advisers have done a grave disservice both to him and to the American people by crafting the administration's recently stated position before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Medellin v. Texas.

In the words of even the Department of Justice, the administration's recent actions represent a breathtaking and "unprecedented" exercise of executive power. Although I remain fiercely loyal to the president, I feel compelled, in accordance with my sworn duty to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, to respectfully register my objection.

For those who are unfamiliar with the case, Jose Ernesto Medellin is a death row inmate who was unanimously convicted by a Texas jury after initiating the gang rape and brutal murder of two teenage girls, Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena. This horrific ritual was the centerpiece of a gang initiation ceremony. After he was arrested, Medellin confessed, even describing the incident as he and his friends having "had fun," and a unanimous Texas jury gave him the most severe measure of punishment for his grotesque crimes.

Following his conviction and appeal, Medellin contacted the Mexican Consulate to come to his aid, and this is where the current controversy begins. Medellin asserted that, as a citizen of Mexico, his rights under the obscure Vienna Convention on Consular Relations were violated in that Texas did not contact the Consulate on his behalf after his arrest, and that the United States must therefore "review and reconsider" his conviction and sentence as well as that of 50 other Mexican citizens. This would effectively mitigate the charges against 51 convicted rapists and murderers and overturn the decisions of state and federal courts; both Texas and U.S. law prohibit review at this late juncture.

Mexico then brought the United States to answer for the state of Texas before the International Court of Justice, or the World Court. The World Court sided with Mexico, calling for "the review and reconsideration" of Medellin's conviction. In response, the administration, while arguing that Texas was legally correct, nonetheless issued a two paragraph memo directing Texas state courts to follow the World Court's mandate. The administration claimed this right as central to its role in furthering the interest of international "comity." In so doing, it struck at the very structural limitations on government by allowing a federal official to improperly override a state official, as well as the executive branch to direct the judicial branch – and thereby abrogated the basic tenets of federalism and separation of powers enshrined in our Constitution:

I have determined, pursuant to the authority vested in me as president by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, that the United States will discharge its international obligations under the decision of the International Court of Justice ... by having state courts give effect to the decision in accordance with general principles of comity in cases filed by 51 Mexican nationals addressed in that decision.

In that breathtaking mandate, those in the administration acting on the president's behalf effectively subordinated U.S. law to the demands of international actors without a legal basis and the necessary consent of Congress. The administration's memo instructed Texas to disregard the statutes of the people's state representatives, decisions of the state and federal courts and any number of executive actors who factored into the process as well.

The precedent set by this action would permit a future administration, perhaps one of less scruples, to override state or federal law where doing so would be in accord with the international "principles of comity," whenever that administration thought it was appropriate in the interest of foreign affairs and international legal considerations.

There would be no end to the irreparable harm that could be done to United States law, in the interest of comity, wherever and however those interests could be found. Our Constitution provides that state law may not be overridden, as in the president's memo, without a duly constitutional federal statute being enacted by Congress first. This protection – the fundamental checks and balances and the separation of powers – is now in danger of being tossed to the wind.

We must now hope that the United States Supreme Court, crafted in large part by the president's own hand, will hand down a decision that not only protects our sovereignty and Constitution, but serves the cause of justice by which we are called to protect the innocent and the voiceless – including the two innocent young girls whose most basic right, that of the right to live, was mercilessly stripped from them.

In spite of the administration's egregious position in the case, if the Bush-crafted Supreme Court upholds the Constitution and rules against the administration's attempted mandate, we will ultimately thank the president for appointing justices who uphold the protection of the innocent, the rule of law and the cause of justice itself.