Hell has one more occupant

I'm sorry that this has caused an international problem. He sure didn't seem worth it. But everyone is entitled to their due process and last night he got his.

Mexican-born murderer executed
Allan Turner and Rosanna Ruiz - Houston Chronicle

HUNTSVILLE — The state of Texas defied an international court and executed Jose Ernesto Medellin late Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution for the Houston killer in the 1993 gang rape-murders of two teenage girls.

Medellin, 33, was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 9:57 p.m., nine minutes after receiving the fatal cocktail and nearly four hours after his scheduled 6 p.m. execution.
Medellin was apologetic in his final statement: “I'm sorry that my actions brought you pain. I hope this brings you the closure that you seek.”

At issue in his final appeals was his assertion that authorities refused his right to contact the Mexican Consulate after his arrest, violating a 1963 treaty signed by the United States and 165 other countries that allowed him to do so.

While some cheered his execution, others warned that his death could render the treaty null and void, putting the lives of U.S. citizens arrested overseas in danger.

Medellin, a native Mexican, was one of six gang members convicted in the June 1993 gang rapes and murders of Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Peña, 16, in a Houston park. Three gang members, including Medellin, were sentenced to death.

The girls were raped and strangled with a belt and shoelace after they stumbled onto a drunken gang initiation rite while cutting through the park to get home before their curfew.

As the Supreme Court's deliberations neared the 6 p.m. execution hour, opposing groups of protesters gathered outside the death house. A group of U.S. Border Watch members and others broke into cheers, thinking the execution had taken place when the prison clock chimed at what was supposed to be Medellin's time of death.

Elaine Jackson of Houston, who identified herself as a friend of the Peña family, was among those supporting the execution.
“The girls didn't get a second chance. Why should he?” Jackson said. “Why should he keep on breathing?”

On the other side of the street, Nancy Bailey was among those opposing the execution. Putting Medellin to death, she said, would flout the nation's treaty commitments and endanger Americans arrested abroad.

As Medellin's hour of death approached Tuesday, Mexico's government, which opposes the death penalty, remained silent. The reaction among Mexicans was decidedly mixed.
Small, scattered protests took place in the country, including a demonstration on the international bridge over the Rio Grande at Reynosa, near McAllen.

But Mexico has been awash with violent crime, and the recent discovery of the body of a kidnapped 14-year-old boy is fueling public anger at criminals and the country's justice system.
“Break the law and they punish you,” wrote Jorge, one of a majority of readers who expressed support for Medellin's execution in a blog on El Universal's Web page. “Those are concepts very distant for Mexicans and their so-called rulers.”

Sergio Sarmiento, one of Mexico's leading commentators, perhaps summed up the mixed emotions on the issue in the newspaper Reforma.
The death penalty, he wrote, doesn't work as a means of dissuading criminals. But there are “certain crimes that are of such cruelty, of such violence, that it's impossible not to consider the death penalty as an option.”

Medellin, who granted few interviews while on death row, told a Mexican news reporter that he'd had 15 years in prison to compose his emotions. On Monday and Tuesday, he visited with his parents, whom he had not seen since 2001.

Prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said the parents were barred from the prison after being overheard plotting an escape for their son. Also Tuesday, Medellin spoke by phone with his younger brother, who is serving 40 years for his part in the crime.

Medellin had insisted he told police he was a Mexican citizen; Gov. Rick Perry's office said he did not. In 2004, the world court, acting on a Mexican lawsuit against the United States, ordered hearings to determine if the cases of Medellin and dozens of other Mexican nationals in custody had been damaged by the treaty violations.

President Bush urged the hearings be held. Texas, however, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that only Congress had authority to demand such hearings.
Weeks after the decision, a bill retroactively calling for the hearings was introduced in Congress. But it remains in legislative limbo.

Some international law experts worry that Medellin's execution will jeopardize the safety of U.S. citizens who are arrested in foreign countries.

“Outside of Texas, this is a huge diplomatic misstep,” said Columbia Law School Professor Sarah Cleveland. “Unfortunately, I doubt the international community is likely to brush this off as simply the actions of Texas. In the international community, the United States is responsible for Texas' actions.”

Judge Cathy Cochran of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals took a different view.
In her opinion concurring with a majority decision to reject Medellin's bid for a post-conviction writ of habeas corpus, she noted, “Some societies may judge our death penalty barbaric. Most Texans, however, consider death a just penalty in certain rare circumstances. Many Europeans disagree. So be it.”

Medellin was the second person executed for the attack.

Derrick O'Brien was put to death in July 2006. Gang leader Peter Cantu remains on death row. Two others, 17 at the time of the crime, had their death sentences commuted to life in prison.
For days after the murders, police and the girls' parents frantically searched for the two missing teens. Four days after the crime, a tip from a gang member's brother led authorities to the bodies, then to the suspects.

Within three hours of his arrest, Medellin admitted his role in the gruesome murders, appalling authorities with his boastful, callous description of the night's events.