Medellín v. Texas

The Court also rejected Medellín's claim that Article 94 of the UN Charter requires the United States to "undertake to comply" with the ICJ ruling. Chief Justice Roberts observed that Article 94(2) of the Charter provides for explicit enforcement for noncompliance by referral to the UN Security Council, and for appeals to be made by only the aggrieved state, not an individual such as Medellín.[28] Even so, the United States clearly reserved the right to veto any Security Council resolutions.^[28] The majority also held that the ICJ statute contained in the Charter also forbade individuals from being parties to suits before the International Court. The ICJ statute is a pact between nations, Justice Roberts said, and only nations, not individuals, may seek its judgment.^[29]

Relying on Sanchez-Llamas, the Supreme Court then held that absent a clear and express statement to the contrary in the relevant treaties, domestic procedural rules govern a treaty's implementation.^[30]

The Court also rejected Medellín's argument that the President's February 28, 2005 Memorandum was binding on state courts. The Court relied on Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579 (1952), recognizing that "plainly compelling interests" were at stake in the Medellín case, but noted:

Such considerations, however, do not allow us to set aside first principles. The President's authority to act, as with the exercise of any governmental power, 'must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.'^[31]

The majority concluded that neither condition had been met. Neither the government nor the defendant had cited any statutory authority which authorized the President to act. Instead, the President claimed that the Optional Protocol and UN Charter implicitly gave him the authority to act. The Court disagreed: "The President has an array of political and diplomatic means available to enforce international obligations, but unilaterally converting a non-self-executing treaty into a self-executing one is not among them."^[32] The President also claimed that Congress had acquiesced in the exercise of presidential power by failing to act following the resolution of prior ICJ controversies. However, Roberts held, "A review of the Executive's actions in those prior cases, however, cannot support the claim that Congress acquiesced in this particular exercise of Presidential authority, for none of them remotely involved transforming an international obligation into domestic law and thereby displacing state law."^[33] The President also founded his action on "related" statutory responsibilities and an "established role" in litigating foreign policy concerns, but none of the examples cited in the government's brief supported that conclusion, the majority ruled, and none of the examples remotely indicated that the President may preempt state law.^[34]

The government had also claimed that the Memorandum was an exercise of the President's authority to resolve international claims under his executive authority. The Court recognized that it was a longstanding practice "never-before questioned."^[35] But relying on Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U.S. 654 (1981), the Court observed, "Past practice does not, by itself, create power."^[35] All prior uses of executive authority to settle international disputes all occurred in narrow circumstances and did not involve the complete setting aside of state law, as the defendant sought in the present case.^[36]

Finally, Medellín argued that the President's Memorandum was a valid exercise of presidential power based on the president's authority to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," as granted in the Article II, Section 3 of the United States Constitution. The majority observed that the government refused to rely on Article II, Section 3, which undercut Medellín's claim. Justice Roberts then concluded that since the ICJ decision in Avena was not domestic law, the "take care" clause did not apply.^[37]

The judgment of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was affirmed.

Justice Roberts' opinion was joined by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito.

Justice Stevens' concurrence

Justice John Paul Stevens largely concurred with the majority's conclusion but thought the case "presents a closer question than the Court's opinion allows", as he agreed with much of the dissenting argument that the "history of the Supremacy Clause, as well as this Court’s treaty-related cases, do not support a presumption against self-execution".^[38] Stevens argued that the Supreme Court could not enforce the ICJ opinion in Avena, as nothing in the U.N. Charter "incorporate[s] international judgments into domestic law"; however, he believed the ICJ's judgment still constituted an international commitment that both federal and state governments should "take action necessary" to comply with...".^[38]

Dissent

Breyer's dissent was joined by Justices Souter and Ginsburg.

Aftermath

Medellín was executed at 9:57 pm on August 5, 2008, after his last-minute appeals were rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.^[40] Texas Governor Rick Perry rejected calls from Mexico and Washington, D.C., to delay the execution, citing the torture, rape and strangulation of two teenage girls as just cause for the death penalty.^[41]

Legal analysis

The Medellín decision has been criticized by scholars of international law on several grounds.^[42] The ruling has been interpreted as implicitly rejecting the principle that courts should hold a strong presumption in favor of treaty self-execution;^[43] some analysts echo the dissent's argument that the Court, in failing to address the Supremacy Clause in its decision,^[44] essentially ruled that treaties are presumptively non-self-executing without an adequate legal basis.^[45] Similarly, other critics contend that the Court departed from established caselaw by applying an analysis "never engaged in" by prior courts that had interpreted treaties.^[46]

Other jurists have cautioned against these contentions, interpreting the decision as merely requiring that self-execution be determined on a "treaty-by-treaty basis" without any general presumption for or against either position.^[47]

Kristofer Monson, who served as Assistant Solicitor General of Texas, argues that much of the criticism of Medellin is rooted in principles of public international law rather than in U.S. domestic law, which gives courts the authority to interpret the scope and binding nature of a treaty no differently than a federal statute.^[42] He notes that no justice challenged the Court's power and necessity to analyze even a presumably self-executing treaty, but rather disagreed on the proper analytical framework.^[42]

In his successful 2012 campaign for the U.S. Senate, as well as during his 2016 presidential candidacy, Republican Ted Cruz cited his work as Solicitor General of Texas in Medellin v. Texas as his proudest achievement,^[48] describing it as "by far the biggest case of my tenure".^[49]

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases
• Lists of United States Supreme Court cases by volume
• List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Roberts Court

References