Opinion ID: 2625741
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Avena and the Presidential Memorandum

Text: The United States is a signatory to the Vienna Convention, 21 U.S.T. 77, and its Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations Concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes, April 24, 1963, 21 U.S.T. 325, T.I.A.S. No. 6820 (Optional Protocol). Article 36 of the Vienna Convention provides: 1. With a view to facilitating the exercise of consular functions relating to nationals of the sending State: [¶] (a) consular officers shall be free to communicate with nationals of the sending State and to have access to them. Nationals of the sending State shall have the same freedom with respect to communication with and access to consular officers of the sending State; [¶] (b) if he so requests, the competent authorities of the receiving State shall, without delay, inform the consular post of the sending State if, within its consular district, a national of that State is arrested or committed to prison or to custody pending trial or is detained in any other manner. Any communication addressed to the consular post by the person arrested, in prison, custody or detention shall also be forwarded by the said authorities without delay. The said authorities shall inform the person concerned without delay of his rights under this sub-paragraph; [¶] (c) consular officers shall have the right to visit a national of the sending State who is in prison, custody or detention, to converse and correspond with him and to arrange for his legal representation. They shall also have the right to visit any national of the sending State who is in prison, custody or detention in their district in pursuance of a judgment. Nevertheless, consular officers shall refrain from taking action on behalf of a national who is in prison, custody or detention if he expressly opposes such action. [¶] 2. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall be exercised in conformity with the laws and regulations of the receiving State, subject to the proviso, however, that the said laws and regulations must enable full effect to be given to the purposes for which the rights accorded under the Article are intended. (Vienna Convention, art. 36, 21 U.S.T. at pp. 100-101.) [4] The Optional Protocol provides that disputes arising out of the interpretation or application of the [Vienna] Convention shall lie within the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. (Optional Protocol, art. 1, 21 U.S.T. at p. 326.) [5] Petitioner was among the 54 Mexican nationals convicted of a capital offense on behalf of whom Mexico instituted proceedings in the ICJ, in which it asked the ICJ to find that the United States had violated article 36. ( Avena, supra, 2004 I.C.J. at pp. 19-20, par. 12.) The ICJ concluded that in the cases of 51 of the Mexican nationals the United States had breached its obligation under article 36 to inform detained Mexican nationals of their rights under that article and to notify the Mexican consular post of the [their] detention, as a result of which the United States further violated its article 36 obligation to permit consular officers to communicate with and have access to their nationals, ... to visit their detained nationals and to enable Mexican consular officers to arrange for legal representation of their nationals. ( Avena, at pp. 53-54, par. 106(1)-(4).) Having concluded that the United States breached its obligations under article 36 as to the 51 Mexican nationals, including petitioner, the ICJ addressed what legal remedies should be considered for the breach. ( Avena, supra, 2004 I.C.J. at p. 58, par. 115.) The ICJ rejected Mexico's request for annulment of the convictions and sentences. ( Id. at p. 60, par. 123.) Instead, the ICJ prescribed, as a remedy, review and reconsideration of these nationals' cases by the United States courts ... with a view to ascertaining whether in each case the violation of Article 36 committed by the competent authorities caused actual prejudice to the defendant in the process of administration of criminal justice. ( Id. at p. 60, par. 121.) The ICJ explained further: The question of whether the violations of Article 36, paragraph 1, are to be regarded as having, in the causal sequence of events, ultimately led to convictions and severe penalties is an integral part of criminal proceedings before the courts of the United States and is for them to determine in the process of review and reconsideration. In so doing, it is for the courts of the United States to examine the facts, and in particular the prejudice and its causes, taking account of the violation of the rights set forth in the Convention. ( Id. at p. 60, par. 122.) The ICJ concluded further, however, that this freedom in the choice of means for such review and reconsideration is not without qualification. ( Avena, supra, 2004 I.C.J. at p. 62, par. 131.) The ICJ explained that the required review and reconsideration must take place within the overall judicial proceedings relating to the individual defendant concerned, and that procedural default doctrines could not bar the required review and reconsideration. ( Id. at p. 66, par. 141.) Moreover, the ICJ required that the violation of article 36 be reviewed independently of due process provisions of the United States Constitution. (2004 I.C.J. at p. 63, pars. 133-134.) The ICJ explained: The rights guaranteed under the Vienna Convention are treaty rights which the United States had undertaken to comply with in relation to the individual concerned, irrespective of the due process rights under United States constitutional law. In this regard, the Court would point out that what is crucial in the review and reconsideration process is the existence of a procedure which guarantees that full weight is given to the violation of the rights set forth in the Vienna Convention, whatever may be the actual outcome of such review and reconsideration. ( Id. at p. 65, par. 139.) [6] Following the Avena decision, another of the Mexican nationals involved in that proceeding, Jose Ernesto Medellin, brought a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. In upholding the denial of his petition, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Medellin's reliance on Avena as a basis for his claim that his Vienna Convention rights had been violated. ( Medellin v. Dretke (5th Cir. 2004) 371 F.3d 270, 279-280.) The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether federal courts were bound by the Avena judgment without regard to procedural default and whether federal courts should give effect to that judgment, as a matter of judicial comity and uniform treaty interpretation. ( Medellin v. Dretke (2005) 544 U.S. 660, 661 [161 L.Ed.2d 982, 125 S.Ct. 2088] ( per curiam ).) However, on February 28, 2005, President George W. Bush issued a memorandum that stated in part: I have determined, pursuant to the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, that the United States will discharge its international obligations under the decision of the International Court of Justice in the Case Concerning Avena and Other Mexican Nationals ( Mexico v. United States of America) (Avena ), 2004 ICJ 128 (Mar. 31), by having State courts give effect to the decision in accordance with general principles of comity in cases filed by the 51 Mexican nationals addressed in that decision. [7] Medellin then filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Observing that the state-court proceeding may provide Medellin with the very reconsideration of his Vienna Convention claim that he now seeks in the present proceeding, the high court dismissed certiorari as improvidently granted. ( Medellin v. Dretke, supra, 544 U.S. 660, 662 ( per curiam ).)