Court Opinion

ID: 9747881
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:40:56.988866+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:28.232161
License: Public Domain

*353KELLER, P.J.,
concurring.
On behalf of the United States as amicus curiae, the U.S. Attorney General’s office has taken the position that President Bush’s memorandum constitutes an order requiring this Court to ignore rules of procedural default (including rules governing contemporaneous objections at trial and statutes governing subsequent habeas corpus applications) and evaluate anew whether applicant was prejudiced by a failure to comply with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. I conclude that the President of the United States does not have the power to order a state court to conduct such a review.
“Although the source of the President’s power to act in foreign affairs does not enjoy any textual detail, the historical gloss on the ‘executive Power’ vested in Article II of the Constitution has recognized the President’s ‘vast share of responsibility for the conduct of our foreign relations.’ ”1 Nevertheless, the executive’s power in this regard is not without limits, as it must still be “exercised in subordination to the applicable provisions of the Constitution.”2 Among the principles enshrined in the United States Constitution is that of federalism — the separate sovereignty of the state and federal governments — embodied in the structure of the Constitution,3 as well as in the Tenth Amendment.4 Although federalism was “the unique contribution of the Framers [of the U.S. Constitution] to political science and political theory,” there remains “much uncertainty respecting the existence, and the content, of standards that allow the Judiciary to play a significant role in maintaining the design contemplated by the Framers.”5 Nevertheless, I agree with Justice Kennedy that “the federal balance is too essential a part of our constitutional structure and plays too vital a role in securing freedom for [the judiciary] to admit inability to intervene when one or the other level of Government have tipped the scales too far.”6
In line with Justice Kennedy’s pronouncement, the United States Supreme Court has increasingly stepped forward to prevent the national government from intruding into the sphere of state power. The Court has adopted a general policy against federal injunctive interference with the course of a pending state criminal prosecution.7 The Court has struck down Congressional enactments relating to crim*354inal justice that concerned traditional areas of state authority8 and that imposed obligations on state officials with respect to a federal regulatory scheme.9 Although the Court has not struck down a treaty or an executive agreement for impermissibly intruding upon state authority, it has in several instances construed such documents to avoid preemption of state law where the state law in question involved a traditional area of state competence and applied equally to citizens and non-citizens.10
One of those instances regards the Vienna Convention treaty itself; the Supreme Court has explicitly recognized that the treaty does not preempt state rules of procedural default.11 To the extent that the President purports to trump such state rules by the memorandum, then, he does not act pursuant to the treaty’s authorization. Nor does he act according to the Optional Protocol, which gave the International Court of Justice (ICJ) jurisdiction of disputes “arising out of the interpretation or application of the Convention” but did not purport to confer jurisdiction regarding the remedy to apply in the event the ICJ determined that a violation of the treaty had occurred.12 Even if the ICJ had been authorized to craft a remedy, however, that authorization surely could not include deciding which level or organ of government would implement such a remedy; the latter would be an internal matter for the party-nation itself to determine.
Consequently, the President must depend solely upon his inherent foreign relations power to justify the action he has taken, and as a result, his action should be subject to greater scrutiny. It is true that the President’s foreign relations power can accomplish the preemption of state law through, for example, executive agreement.13 But the treaty process, with the *355requirement that a supermajority of the Senate concur, is in the United States Constitution for a reason;14 Alexander Hamilton suggested in the Federalist Papers that the provision operates as an important cheek on the President’s power.15 I find it significant that this check is exercised by the Senate, the organ of the national government most closely aligned with the states.
The Supreme Court has suggested that the proper analysis for determining whether a president’s exercise of his foreign relations power preempts state law is to determine first whether the state has acted within an area of “traditional state responsibility,” and if it has, to assess the degree of conflict with federal policy and the strength of the state interest involved.16 Unlike other federal preemption cases in which a state has prevailed, we address here an express, stark conflict between the President’s assertion of power (at least under the Justice Department’s interpretation) and the state law at issue. Nevertheless, given the principle that a weighty state interest lessens the likelihood of federal preemption, it follows that a president cannot use his foreign affairs authority to intrude into the state arena with impunity: at some point, the national interest is served in too attenuated a manner by the specific presidential action, and the state interest intruded upon is too fundamental, to permit a president’s intervention.
Such a case is now before us. Criminal justice is an area primarily of state concern. The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that the “States possess primary authority for defining and enforcing the criminal law.”17 And states have, to say the least, an overwhelming interest in the procedures followed in their own courts. In Younger, the Supreme Court found that “a proper respect for state functions” counseled against injunctive interference by the federal courts with the progress of a state prosecution.18 But the presidential memorandum attempts to do something just as intrusive: it attempts to force the states to conduct proceedings they would not otherwise conduct and to do so in a manner inconsistent with their own procedures. The Supreme Court has itself refrained from engaging in this kind of “lawmaking.”19 Moreover, the memorandum ignores “the importance of the procedural default rules in an adversary system.”20 These rules, which are neutral — applying to everyone, not just foreign nationals — “are designed to encourage parties to raise their claims promptly *356and to vindicate the law’s important interest in finality of judgments.”21 When a habeas petitioner asked the United States Supreme Court in Sanchez-Llamas to exempt Vienna Convention claims from the rules of procedural default, the Court responded that the relief requested was “by any measure, extraordinary.”22 The Court observed that the exception to procedural default rules requested in that case (as in this one) “is accorded to almost no other right, including many of our most fundamental constitutional protections.”23 The President’s action here is unprecedented.
And such extraordinary action is not necessary. The adversary system offers the foreign national the opportunity to raise a Vienna Convention claim before or during trial. If he does so, the trial court is in a position to afford an appropriate remedy — if a judicial remedy is appropriate at all.24 If the foreign national is represented by counsel, and counsel fails to raise the Vienna Convention issue in a timely fashion, then a “safety valve” exists in the form of an ineffective assistance of counsel claim that can be raised on an initial application for writ of habeas corpus. If all other avenues in the state are exhausted, the foreign national can still apply to the Board of Pardons and Parole and the Governor for executive clemency. And the foreign national has the option to litigate a habeas petition in the federal system.
The President has made an admirable attempt to resolve a complicated issue involving the United States’ international obligations. But this unprecedented, unnecessary, and intrusive exercise of power over the Texas court system cannot be supported by the foreign policy authority conferred on him by the United States Constitution. As a consequence, the presidential memorandum does not constitute a new legal or factual basis for relief under Art. 11.071, § 5, nor does it override § 5’s requirements.
With these comments, I concur in the judgment with regard to the analysis of the president’s memorandum and otherwise join the Court’s opinion.

. American Ins. Assn. v. Garamendi, 539 U.S. 396, 414, 123 S.Ct. 2374, 156 L.Ed.2d 376 (2003)(quoting in part Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 610-611, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952)(Frankfurter, J., concurring)).

. Id. at 416 n. 9, 123 S.Ct. 2374.

. See U.S. Const., Arts. I, § 2 (members of the House of Representatives elected by people "of the several States”), § 3 (Senate composed of two senators from each state), § 4 (time, place and manner of elections for representatives and senators prescribed by each state), § 10 (specific prohibitions against the states), II, § 1 (states appoint presidential electors), IV, § 1 (full faith and credit between states), § 2 (privileges and immunities of citizens of the states), § 3 (admission of new states into the union), § 4 (duties of U.S. to its states), V (state ratification of amendments proposed by Congress).

. U.S. Const., Amend X: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

. United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 575, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995)(Ken-nedy, J., concurring).

. id. at 578, 115 S.Ct. 1624.

. Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 45-54, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971)(abstention doctrine).

. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (striking down law criminalizing possession of a firearm in a gun-free school zone); United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 120 S.Ct. 1740, 146 L.Ed.2d 658 (2000)(invalidating statutorily-created civil cause of action for victims of gender-motivated violence).

. Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 117 S.Ct. 2365, 138 L.Ed.2d 914 (1997)(striking provision requiring state and local law enforcement officials to conduct background checks on prospective handgun purchasers).

. Todok v. Union State Bank, 281 U.S. 449, 454-455, 50 S.Ct. 363, 74 L.Ed. 956 (1930)(treaty of amity and commerce did not preempt Nebraska homestead law); Guaranty Trust Co. v. United States, 304 U.S. 126, 142-143, 58 S.Ct. 785, 82 L.Ed. 1224 (1938)(exec-utive agreement with the Soviet Government assigning economic claims did not preempt New York statute of limitations); Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, -U.S. -,-, 126 S.Ct. 2669, 2682-2688, 165 L.Ed.2d 557 (2006)(Vienna Convention treaty does not preempt state rules of procedural default).

. Sanchez-Llamas, supra.

. Under the ICJ statute, four different topics can be made subject to the international court’s compulsory jurisdiction:
a. the interpretation of a treaty;
b. any question of international law;
c. the existence of any fact which, if established would constitute a breach of an international obligation,
d. the nature and extent of the reparation to be made for the breach of an international obligation.
Statute of the Court of International Justice, Art. 36, § 2 (emphasis added). The Optional Protocol subjects to the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction only "[djisputes arising out of the interpretation or application of the Convention.” Optional Protocol to Vienna Convention on Consular Relations Concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes, Art. I (emphasis added).

. Garamendi, 539 U.S. at 416, 123 S.Ct. 2374 ("Generally, then valid executive agreements are fit to preempt state law, just as treaties are,” but see caveat referenced earlier in this opinion and cited in footnote 2).

. See U.S. Const., Art. II, § 2 (“He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided that two thirds of the Senators present concur”).

. Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers, No. 75.

. Garamendi, 539 U.S. at 420, 420 n. 11, 123 S.Ct. 2374.

. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 561 n. 3, 115 S.Ct. 1624 (quoting Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 635, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993)(quoting Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 128, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982))).

.401 U.S. at 44. 91 S.Ct. 746.

. Sanchez-Llamas, 126 S.Ct. at 2680 ("where a treaty does not provide a particular remedy, either expressly or implicitly, it is not for the federal courts to impose one on the States through lawmaking of their own”), 2687 (The petitioner "asks us to require the States to hear Vienna Convention claims raised for the first time in state postconviction proceedings. Given that the convention itself imposes no such requirement, we do not perceive any grounds for us to revise state procedural rules in this fashion.”)(emphasis in original).

. Id. at 2685.

. Id.

. Id. at 2687.

. Id. at 2688.

. See Id. at 2680 (expressing doubt about the appropriateness of a judicial remedy).