On June 29, 1993, eighteen-year-old José Medellín was arrested, along with five associates, for the brutal rape and murder of two teenage girls in Houston, Texas. There seems to have been little doubt of his guilt. He bragged to witnesses about his exploits and signed a written confession for the police, and physical evidence linked him to the crime. It took a jury only thirteen minutes to find him guilty, and a death sentence followed.
Yet as Mygatt-Tauber explains in this eye-opening book, a complication soon emerged. Despite having lived most of his life in the United States, Medellín was born in Mexico and remained a Mexican citizen. Article 36 of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (vccr) requires states to give foreign nationals who have been arrested the ability to seek assistance from their country’s consulate. Consular officials can offer vital aid, such as suggesting lawyers...