Jose Ernesto Medellin v. Doug Dretke, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division (544 U.S. 660)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 23, 2005 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 544 U.S. 660 · 125 S. Ct. 2088
- Decided
- May 23, 2005
- Term
- October Term 2004
- Vote
- 5–4
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Petition denied or appeal dismissed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. We granted certiorari in this case to consider two questions: first, whether a federal court is bound by the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) ruling that United States courts must reconsider petitioner José Medellin’s claim for relief under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, Apr. 24, 1963, [1970] 21 U. S. T. 77, 100-101, T. I. A. S. No. 6820, without regard to procedural default doctrines; and second, whether a federal court should give effect, as a matter of judicial comity and uniform treaty interpretation, to the ICJ’s judgment. 543 U. S. 1032 (2004). After we granted certiorari, Medellin filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, relying in part upon a memorandum from President George W. Bush that was issued after we granted certiorari. This state-court proceeding may provide Medellin with the very reconsideration of his Vienna Convention claim that he now seeks in the present proceeding. The merits briefing in this case also has revealed a number of hurdles Medellin must surmount before qualifying for federal habeas relief in this proceeding, based on the resolution of the questions he has presented here. For these reasons we dismiss the writ as improvidently granted. See Ticor Title Ins. Co. v. Brown, 511 U. S. 117, 121-122 (1994) (per curiam); The Monrosa v. Carbon Black Export, Inc., 359 U. S.…
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