Medellin v. Texas, 06-984: Internationalists Lose Supreme Court Case

Texas and America in general, win a court decision against the Globalists and the Bush administration, concerning American sovereignty and the right for Texas, in accordance with Texas state law and a trial by peers to execute a convicted murderer.

 In a 6-3 Supreme Court decision, the court ruled President Bush overstepped his authority when he intervened on behalf of Jose Ernesto Medellin, facing the death penalty for killing two teenagers nearly 15 years ago.

 The Constitution “allows the president to execute the laws, not make them,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court’s decision pertaining to the president’s authority, international law and the death penalty.  Justice Stephen Breyer, in dissent wrote that America should not disregard its obligation of adhering to international treaties. Although, this treaty is a non-self-executing treaty, and by definition, would not interfere with legitimate treaties ratified by the legislative and executive branch, which means that argument has zero bearing over the case at hand.

The “Opiniojuris” made two astute assertions to the broader precedent Medellin set.

The presidential power holding, although it takes a back seat to the self-execution holding in the majority opinion, may be more sweeping in at least one sense. The Court holds pretty categorically that the President lacks power unilaterally to execute a treaty that is otherwise non-self-executing. In fact, the Court says that a determination that the treaty is non-self-executing means that Congress has implicitly disapproved actions to execute the treaty, placing presidential actions to execute it in Category 3, not 2, under Youngstown. Given the broad and amorphous nature of many of the non-self-executing treaties to which we are parties—think of some of the more open-ended trade or human rights instruments—a contrary holding would have been a broad grant of power to the President indeed.

 The majority also takes what seems to be a major bite out of the sole executive agreement cases like Garamendi, Dames & Moore, and (looking further back) Pink and Belmont. Chief Justice Roberts says that these cases “involve a narrow set of circumstances” concerning the settlement of claims against foreign nations. It will be harder, in future, to cite Garamendi and Dames & Moore for open-ended presidential authority to create binding federal law by sole executive agreements without congressional action.

 This precedent might just be the very ground that American’s concerned about state’s rights and American sovereignty might stand to make legal cases against an imposing federal and international governmental bodies. Specifically, Libertarians and more generally free-market advocates, will see this as a direct victory over international trade tribunals on their impact on local laws concerning environmental and labor practices.