Lone Star Justice

Last night, the state of Texas defied the international community by putting Jose Medellin to death for a brutal gang rape and murder that took place in 1993. Though Medellin's guilt was never in question, his status as a Mexican national and Texas' failure to notify him of his consular rights sparked significant international controversy. Texas' decision to go forward with the execution is likely to have profound and troubling implications for international law and the safety of American citizens living abroad.

The piece below is adapted from an article PCARE member Bryan McCann wrote for the online legal journal The Jurist in the weeks leading up to last night's execution:

Medellin Death Penalty Case Exposes Hollow Texas Brand of Gunslinger Politics

Two years ago, a fellow anti-death penalty activist and I participated in a public debate on the University of Texas campus with the Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT). No one was surprised when the YCT’s first plan of attack was to read – verbatim – a detailed account of the particularly gruesome gang rape and murder of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena published on the website ProDeathPenalty.com. Their strategy represents an all too familiar method of arguing in favor of the death penalty. Who would have the audacity to argue race, class, or international law when confronted with the ghastly killings of two beautiful teenage girls? Where there is mourning and outrage, there is often little room for analysis.

There can be no denying the devastation that the brutal murders of these two innocent girls wrought on their families and Houston community. But much like the YCT used the tragedy that befell Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena at our public debate to ignore fundamental structural problems with the death penalty, Texas Governor Rick Perry is using it, coupled with his usual brand of Lone Star ethos, to ignore international law. As courageous groups like Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights have long attested, such manipulation does little to ease the pain of devastated families.

If Texas gets its way, Joe Medellin will be the second of the five men sentenced to death for the Ertman and Pena murders to be executed. However, his pending execution date of August 5 has become a topic of considerable international controversy. Though Derrick O’Brien, who was executed in 2006 for the crimes, was a native of Texas, Joe Medellin is a Mexican national. He was denied access to a Mexican consulate for legal assistance during his original trial. This flagrant affront to international law enshrined in the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations prompted the International Court of Justice to issue a 2004 order to stay Medellin’s execution. This prompted none other than President Bush to issue a memorandum ordering Texas to halt the executions and review the convictions of the Mexican nationals, including Medellin, mentioned in the ICJ order. When George W. Bush, former Governor of Texas, is issuing orders to honor international law and halt executions, the stakes are clearly very high.

Yet, in March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Bush had overstepped his boundaries and Texas may proceed with the execution of Medellin and other inmates forced to navigate Texas criminal law without consular advice. In response to a more recent order by the ICJ, Perry’s office responded with its typical frontier zeal:

The world court [ICJ] has no standing in Texas and Texas is not bound by a ruling or edict from a foreign court. It is easy to get caught up in discussions of international law and justice and treaties. It's very important to remember that these individuals are on death row for killing our citizens.

This is familiar language from Perry’s office. When the European Union issued a declaration on the eve of Texas’ 400th execution since 1982, encouraging the state to place a moratorium on executions, the Office of the Governor replied:

230 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens. While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.

“These individuals are on death row for killing our citizens.” “Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.” It seems the Lone Star State’s busy death row is nothing less than an homage to the spirit of American and Texas independence, international law be damned. Such populist appeals resonate all too well with what I believe to be one of the finest articulations of how capital punishment operates in American society. Legal scholar Austin Sarat writes, “State killing is part of a strategy of governance that makes us fearful and dependent on the illusion of state protection, that divides rather than unites, that promises simple solutions to complex problems.”

The death penalty in Texas and elsewhere requires simplicity. There is no need to get “caught up in discussions of international law and justice and treaties” when we can view the poisoning of convicted criminals as a testament to our rugged collective identity. As we quickly learned at our public debate two years ago, the death penalty cannot withstand the slightest amount of complexity. The closer one looks, the more unsightly this depraved institution becomes. Whether it be the risk of making Americans abroad more vulnerable to prosecution because of their government’s disdain for international law or the well documented socio-economic disparities that permeate the nation’s death rows, the complexities of capital punishment are ultimately its undoing. Thus, Rick Perry’s usual brand of gunslinger politics – all too similar to that of his predecessor – is about much more than his own Texan roots. It is the lifeblood of a cruel and ineffective state sanction that allows him to convince ordinary Texans that he is on our side. When Texas ranks 37th in spending on public education, it is little surprise that Perry and his colleagues cling so dearly to this irreparably broken strategy of governance.

Welcome!

In 2002, a group of communication scholars gathered at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association in New Orleans, LA. What they had in common was a deep disgust with alarming national incarceration rates, as well as the growing relationship between private corporations and state prison systems. Many had spent years teaching inside penitentiaries. Others brought experience at the grassroots level, organizing efforts to change local, state, and national penal policies. All were communication scholars anxious to use their work as academics to combat the nation's rapidly expanding prison system. They adopted the acronym "PCARE" to represent the composition of their talents and experiences: Prison Communication, Activism, Research, and Education.

Since 2003, the American prison population has continued to grow. In fact, the United States incarcerates a larger percentage of its population than any nation in the world. As a result, PCARE continues its efforts to encourage communication activism by our friends and colleagues. Mass incarceration is one of the great crises of our time and is inextricably bound to the troubling discourses of crime and punishment that permeate our schools, media, and communities. Because of this, we believe communication scholars and practitioners have an important role to play in the struggle to fight our nation's race to incarcerate and work toward alternative responses to crime.

This blog is one part of our work. We have already published an article in the NCA journal Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies discussing the intersection between communication and incarceration. We also maintain a website and routinely intervene at academic and political conferences. We plan to use this site to keep our colleagues and allies updated on both our collective work and important developments in the history of the American penal system.

Numerous scholars have noted that the prison is a relatively new invention. Accordingly, it is by no means natural or permanent. Only by denaturalizing the prison's hegemony in American politics and culture can we begin the difficult but profoundly important work of dismantling this prison-industrial-complex.