[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 50 (Tuesday, April 1, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H1876-H1877]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE MURDER OF TWO TEENAGE GIRLS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, the year was 1993, 15 years ago, when two 
teenage girls, Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena, 14 years of age and 
16 years of age, were walking home one evening. Unfortunately for them, 
when they took a shortcut, they came across a gang by the name of the 
Black and Whites. Their gang leader was Jose Ernesto Medellin.
  He and his fellow gangsters kidnapped these two teenage girls, 
brutally assaulted them, taunted them, raped them for over an hour, and 
then with the shoelaces from the tennis shoes of these two girls, they 
made a noose and strangled both of these girls.
  The brutal killing that took place, Madam Speaker, as you are aware 
being from Houston, incensed the people of the Houston area, especially 
the way in which these two girls met their death. But 5 days later, 
Jose Medellin was arrested, and in his possession, he had on his wrist 
a Mickey Mouse watch that he had stolen from Jennifer Ertman, his token 
of the murder of a little girl. He was proud of what he had done. He 
was so proud of it he even bragged about it and confessed to the 
Houston Police Department of raping and killing these two girls after 
he was properly warned.
  He was tried for capital murder. The State was seeking the death 
penalty, and 12 jurors in a court in Houston, Texas, convicted him and 
gave him the death penalty, which he earned and deserved for what he 
did to these two teenage girls. He appealed his case all the way to 
Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court of the United States upheld his 
conviction saying it was lawful. But that was not the end of the story.
  Because, you see, 15 years later Jose Ernesto Medellin is still 
alive. And back when this trial occurred 15 years ago, I met the 
families of these two teenage girls, and they to this day continue to 
suffer and wonder if justice will ever be served. And the reason that 
he has not met his just reward is because he appealed his case again to 
the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court right down the street last 
week upheld the conviction for a second time.
  His second appeal was somewhat unique because, you see, it turns out 
Jose Ernesto Medellin, who was fluent in English, apparently is 
illegally from the nation of Mexico, and he was an illegal immigrant 
when he committed this homicide. Back in the days of 1993, the Houston 
Police Department didn't even ask people what nationality they were 
when they arrested them, but be that as it may, the Mexican Government 
then decided to sue the United States of America in the World Court, 
claiming that the State of Texas should have told Jose Ernesto Medellin 
that he had the right to consult with the Mexican consulate before he 
confessed. Of course, the Houston Police Department never told him he 
couldn't consult with the Mexican consulate. He was warned properly 
under Federal law and under State law.
  But the Mexican Government was not satisfied with that after the 
conviction was upheld, and 10 years later, they filed this lawsuit in 
the World Court. And the World Court ruled that the State of Texas had 
to retry Jose Ernesto Medellin for capital murder because he was not 
told he should have been allowed to talk to his Mexican consulate.
  Of course, this gets more complicated because, you see, the President 
of the United States intervened on behalf of the nation of Mexico. 
After this decision was made in the World Court, the President of the 
United States told the courts in Texas to follow the World Court order, 
retry Jose Ernesto Medellin for capital murder, and the Texas courts, 
in all due respect to the administration, ignored the President's 
request because, as they said, the judicial branch is independent of 
the executive branch, and the President has no jurisdiction over 
telling any court, much less Texas courts, what to do.
  It turns out that Jose Ernesto Medellin is not the only Mexican 
national on death row in the United States. There are 54 others who 
have been tried throughout the country, most of them in Texas, and have 
been given the death penalty for heinous crimes committed against 
people in the United States.
  So, after that second case came before the Supreme Court, the issue 
was, after being sued in the World Court by

[[Page H1877]]

Mexico, whether or not the State of Texas must abide by a World Court 
decision telling them to retry a case. And the second issue was, does 
the President, any President, have the authority, as the executive 
branch of government, to order a State court to do anything, including 
retry somebody for a case where they have been found convicted.
  Well, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the World Court opinion has no 
bearing in Texas courts and that the President of the United States, 
the executive branch, has no jurisdiction over Texas courts to tell 
them what to do. The International Court of Justice, as the World Court 
is called, lacks jurisdiction in this case to order the courts of Texas 
to do anything because, you see, part of the problem was Jose Ernesto 
Medellin never complained for over 10 years that he didn't have the 
chance to talk to his Mexican consulate, and as most lawyers know in 
the legal profession, and as a former trial judge, if you don't object 
at the trial, you've waived that right indefinitely.
  So, Madam Speaker, maybe justice will be served in this case if Jose 
Ernesto Medellin will meet the fate he deserves, and maybe our Federal 
Government will stop taking the wrong side of this issue of supporting 
illegal immigrants over people in the United States, like little girls 
who are murdered.
  And that's just the way it is.

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