[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 118 (Thursday, July 17, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H6713]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TEXAS IGNORES WORLD COURT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, Texas, the State of Texas, has ignored the 
order of the World Court in Geneva. Let me give you the facts of this 
case.
  Fifteen years ago in 1993 there were two young teenage girls by the 
name of Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16, headed home as the 
sun set in Houston, Texas.
  They took a shortcut so they could get home in a timely fashion, as 
ordered by their parents. That was their fatal mistake. They came in 
contact with a group of gangsters headed by Jose Medellin. It was a 
gang initiation. The girls stumbled upon the gang of gangsters, and 
these gangsters kidnapped, held hostage, and brutally sexually 
assaulted these two girls for as long as they wished.

                              {time}  1545

  After they were through, they tortured them, and Jose Medellin 
strangled each of them with their shoelaces. Medellin was proud of his 
conduct. He was later arrested by the Houston Police Department along 
with others from his group of bandits, specifically Derrick O'Brien, 
Peter Cantu and two others.
  These individuals were tried by Texas juries. A Texas jury found that 
Derrick O'Brien committed the worst crime in our society, ordered the 
death penalty, and he's been executed.
  The ringleader of the case, Jose Medellin, well, his case has been on 
appeal for 15 years. Here's what has happened in his case. He was 
convicted. His case worked its way all the way to the Supreme Court of 
the United States. The Supreme Court upheld this conviction. Then years 
later he says, I should have been allowed to talk to my Mexican 
consulate at some time during the proceeding, even though he never 
requested it upon his arrest.
  Of course, then, the Federal Government gets involved in the case. 
The case works its way back through the Supreme Court. Before it gets 
to the Supreme Court, the administration, the White House, intervened 
and told Texas courts to give Medellin a new trial because he was not 
allowed to ask or see his Mexican consulate, even though he didn't 
request it. Remember, Medellin was illegally in the United States, even 
though he had been here since he was 6 months of age.
  The State of Texas, the Texas courts, in all due respect to the 
President of the United States, ignored his request. The case went back 
to the Supreme Court, right down the street.
  A few months ago the Supreme Court of the United States said, World 
Court has no jurisdiction. The President of the United States has no 
jurisdiction to tell the courts in Texas what to do and upheld his 
conviction and ordered him executed.
  But, once again, the World Court intervened yesterday, and said the 
State of Texas cannot execute Medellin.
  Well, let me tell you something, the State of Texas on August 5 is 
going to execute this defendant for what he did. The State of Texas has 
decided that the World Court has no jurisdiction to tell the State of 
Texas or any other State what to do. I think it was put appropriately 
by the fathers of these two girls.
  No parent wants to see their child die before their time, especially 
the way that these two girls died. I have four kids, three of them are 
girls; and seven grandkids, four of them are girls. Here's what one of 
the fathers had to say about the death of his daughter. He said, ``The 
World Court doesn't mean diddly. This business belongs in the State of 
Texas. The people of the State of Texas support the execution. We thank 
them.''
  More appropriately, the other father, Adolfo Pena, the father of 
Elizabeth Pena, said, ``I believe we have been through all the red tape 
we can go through. It's time to rock and roll.''
  Justice must be served for victims of crime. 15 years justice has 
been waiting, in this specific case, 15 years, longer than one of the 
girls even lived. This defendant arrogantly has been sitting on death 
row.
  I was a judge when this case was tried back in Texas in the 1990s, 
and it was one of the worst crimes we had ever heard in our city, where 
two teenage girls minding their own business were kidnapped by a bunch 
of gangsters, sexually assaulted, tortured, murdered and the criminals 
bragged about this conduct.
  Today is judgment day for Jose Medellin. He deserves the death 
penalty, he earned it, and justice demands it, whether the World Court 
likes it or not.
  And that's just the way it is.

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