"Bush found unusual allies in three liberal
justices:
Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, and David Souter."
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That
single sentence, from the BGlobe's
summary of the high court's Medellin decision, is all anyone
needs to know. Doesn't matter what the case was, Bush must
clearly be off the American reservation by virtue of that alliance with
left-wing carbuncles.
His plunge into one-world doctrine was
appropriately, justifiably, and fortuitously smacked down. All
three dissenters, and Ginsburg especially, have espoused reaching across borders to the law of foreign
nations to determine law here in America . That willingness
alone, to cede American sovereignty to, in effect, the United
Nations is, in my view, reason enough to remove them from the
court. The WSJ
expands on the importance of the Bush
bitch-slapping. |
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...
José Medellín, a Mexican national, murdered two
Houston teenagers. He was sentenced to death by a Texas jury, but his
lawyers argued on appeal that he hadn't had access to Mexico's
consulate before he confessed to his crimes.
This was a violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention,
which holds that diplomats are supposed to be notified when their
nationals are arrested. ...
... Mexican authorities made the case a referendum on capital
punishment
and international legal norms, ultimately suing the U.S. in the
International Court of Justice at The Hague. The ICJ ruled in Mexico's
favor, ordering states to give Medellín and some 51 other
nationals new
hearings. The question before the Supreme Court was whether such
international dictates must be enforced by sovereign state courts. An
affirmative answer might have gone a long way toward validating the
expansive claims of liberal legal theorists that U.S. courts take
instruction from the U.N., among other moral oases.
... Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the 6-3 majority, ruled
that
the ICJ finding was not binding because the Vienna Convention is an
understanding between governments, a diplomatic compact.
While the Bush Administration did not agree with
Mexico's choice of venue, or the intrusion on U.S. sovereignty, it
attempted to allay the diplomatic ruckus by directing states to comply
with the ICJ ruling in a 2005 executive order. The Court ruled that the
President's power, too, was limited by the Constitution. The authority
to make treaty commitments did not extend to unilaterally asserting new
state responsibilities or legal duties. Again, the executive could only
make new laws in conjunction with the legislature.
Devotees of using foreign law to overrule
American politicians will squawk. But the Medellín
majority has delivered a victory for legal modesty and the U.S.
Constitution.
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