WASHINGTON (CNN) — A United Nations court has found that the United States violated an international treaty and the court’s own order when a Mexican national was executed last year in a Texas prison.

Jose Ernesto Medellin was executed by lethal injection for raping and murdering two girls aged 14 and 16.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a ruling Monday in an unusual case that pitted President Bush against his home state in a dispute over federal authority, local sovereignty and foreign treaties. Mexico had filed a formal complaint against U.S. state and federal officials

“The United States of America has breached the obligation incumbent upon it” to stop the execution, the ICJ announced in a unanimous opinion.

Jose Ernesto Medellin’s death by lethal injection in August followed a 15-year legal dispute after his conviction for two brutal slayings.

At issue was whether Texas and other states had to give in to a demand by the president that the prisoner be allowed new hearings and resentencing. Bush made that request reluctantly after the international court in 2004 concluded that Medellin and about 50 other Mexicans on various states’ death rows were improperly denied access to their consulate upon arrest, a violation of a treaty signed by the United States decades ago.

Their home countries could have provided legal and other assistance to the men had they been notified, the court said.

In a separate judgment, the ICJ declined Mexico’s demand that the United States provide guarantees against executing other foreign inmates in the future.

The U.S. Supreme Court last March ruled for Texas, allowing the Medellin execution to proceed.

Efforts stalled in Congress last summer over legislation that would have given foreign death row inmates like Medellin a new hearing before any punishment could be carried out.

State Department officials have said the international ruling will not help other foreign inmates in U.S. prisons, because federal officials cannot force states to comply. Administration officials also said that the president did all he could to force state compliance and that Congress now needs to intervene with specific legislation.

Medellin was 18 when he participated in the June 1993 gang rape and murder of two Harris County girls: Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16. He was convicted of the crimes and sentenced to death.

The prisoner’s lawyers argued that Mexican consular officials were never able to meet with the man until after his conviction.

Only Oklahoma has commuted a capital inmate’s sentence to life in prison in response to the international judgment. Days after Medellin died by lethal injection, Texas executed Honduran native Heliberto Chi Acheituno, who also said his treaty rights were violated.

The ICJ in 2004 ordered the United States to provide “review and reconsideration” of the sentences and convictions of the Mexican prisoners. That world court again in July mandated that the United States do everything within its federal authority to stop Medellin’s execution until his case could be further reviewed by American courts.

Based in The Hague, Netherlands, the ICJ resolves disputes between nations over treaty obligations. The 15-judge panel is the principal judicial organization of the United Nations, laying out rights of people detained in other nations.

The Supreme Court appeal turned on what role each branch of government plays to give force to international treaty obligations. After the ICJ ruling, the United States pulled out of that international court’s jurisdiction in matters arising from the Vienna Convention.

In allowing the Medellin execution to proceed, the Supreme Court majority noted congressional “inaction” on the issue, efforts that had “not progressed beyond the bare introduction of a bill in the four years since the ICJ ruling.”

Coretta Scott King, the widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., died in 2006 at the age of 78. She is remembered for many brave and selfless acts, including her steady opposition to capital punishment. The widow of one of the nation’s most famous murder victims frequently voiced her opposition to the death penalty with a very powerful argument.

“As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses,” she said. “An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder”.

Below is a letter written by Stefanie Collins regarding Andre Thomas, who is pictured to the left before he pulled out his remaining eye and ate it. A few years ago he had pulled out his right eye. He no longer has any eyes.

Stefanie Collins is a member of Campaign to End the Death Penalty and a 2008 graduate of the University of Texas at Austin Law School.

To the editor:

Re: Texas death row inmate pulls out eye, eats it

I have corresponded with Andre Thomas, the young man on Texas’ death row who recently tore out his remaining eye, for over a year. The trial record and my own personal experience with Mr. Thomas both attest to his severe mental illness. Mr. Thomas has struggled with debilitating paranoid schizophrenia since his late adolescence (as is normal with the disease). His illness was the direct cause of the terrible crime he committed.

Texas ranks near the bottom of the nation in per capita mental health care spending. The indigent, like Mr. Thomas and his victims, bear the burdens of our neglect of this critical social service. Mentally ill citizens who pose a threat to themselves and others, like Mr. Thomas did, go to health care facilities begging for help every day and are turned away because of lack of funding and capacity. Sadly, some, like Mr. Thomas, in the grips of illness go on to commit violent crimes.

It’s simple. We can provide the necessary health care for our citizens and prevent tragedies like the murders of the innocent victims of Mr. Thomas and save money. If we choose not to do so, we can wait until after the crimes take place and multiple lives have been destroyed and spend extra money to keep sick people wasting away in cages until the time comes to execute them. If we choose the latter, what kind of explanation should we offer to the families of the victims of these preventable crimes?

Stefanie Collins

Justice for Rodney Reed — an innocent man on Texas’ death row
www.freerodneyreed.org

Below is a letter sent to us by Frank Moore’s wife, Danielle. She asks that interested people copy it, make your own modifications to express your own ideas in your own words and mail it or fax your letter to the Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Rissie Owens
Presiding Officer, Board of Pardons and Paroles
Executive Clemency Section
8610 Shoal Creek Boulevard
Austin, TX 78757
USA

Re: Frank Moore (TDCJ # 999210)

January 13, 2009

VIA FAX: 512/467-0945

Dear Rissie Owens, Board Presiding Officer, and other Board Members:

I am requesting by this letter that you commute Frank Mooreʼs death sentence and recommend either clemency or a new trial. He has an execution date of January 21.

Frank Mooreʼs actions in 1994 were in self defense. Testimony against Mr. Moore by key witness Ms. Wallace was inconsistent with other testimony and concealed the whereabouts and relationship to other witness. Knowles Ray, who had key information as to the lead up to Mr. Mooreʼs act of self defense was never called to testify. Also, evidence of the criminal history of the witnesses was not allowed in the trial by the trial judge in violation of his right to a fair trial. This evidence was essential to showing the victim was actually the aggressor. There have been several affidavits that support the claim that Mr. Moore was defending himself and new evidence has also been presented by investigator Huel that he says proves Mr. Moore was defending himself.

Frank Moore was abandoned by his birth mother and through sheer willpower he survived on the streets of San Antonio on his own for many years. He had struggled and kept himself in school until the 10th grade. Since 1994 Mr. Moore has become a religious man, has grown spiritually and personally and is no longer the same person he was in 1994.

Justice allows for mercy and I ask for mercy for Frank Moore. The State of Texas administers the death penalty in only 2% of murder cases and, given its finality, can never be administered fairly. The death penalty is an extreme punishment which can never be reversed, depriving the accused of the possibility of redemption. Because of these factors and because use of the death penalty has no redeeming value and no deterrent effect, I would ask that you consider it to be an extreme form of punishment in this case and recommend commutation.

Sincerely,

Your signature and Address

From the International Herald Tribune:

HUNTSVILLE, Texas: A man convicted of murdering three people during a night of robberies more than 13 years ago in Fort Worth was put to death Wednesday evening in the nation’s first execution of the year.

In a brief, final statement, Curtis Moore, 40, thanked a woman who administers to the spiritual needs of death row inmates.

“I want to thank you for all the beautiful years of friendship and ministry,” Moore told Irene Wilcox as she watched through a window a few feet (meters) from him. Moore never acknowledged a man who survived his attacks or five relatives of the three who died.

He was pronounced dead eight minutes after the lethal drugs began flowing.