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HOUSTON — Despite pleas from the White House and the State Department, as well as an international court order to review their cases, Texas will execute five Mexicans on death row, a spokeswoman for the governor said Thursday.
On Wednesday, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ordered a review of five of the Texas cases after Mexico complained that the convicts, all men, had not been allowed a chance to talk to a Mexican consul after their arrests, as required under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
President Bush, who as Texas’ governor oversaw 152 executions, ordered his home state to comply with the international court. But Texas refused and fought Mr. Bush’s order in court. In March, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the president had overstepped his powers and that only Congress could require the state to change its judicial procedures to comply with the 1963 treaty.
For relatives of the murdered girls, questions about international relations seem irrelevant. “This has nothing to do with the World Court; it has nothing to do with the U.N.,” said Jennifer’s father, Randy Ertman. “This has everything to do with what Mexico wants, not what Texas wants. The people of Texas want the death penalty.”