US Supreme Court agrees to hear Jose Medellin case for 2nd time:  Mark Sherman has this AP report, entitled "Court Takes Mexican Death Penalty Case," on the US Supreme Court's decision today to hear the case of Texas death row inmate Jose Medellin, a Mexican national.  The court will address one or more of the issues of 1) whether failure to inform Medellin of his right to inform the Mexican consulate of his detention at the time of his arrest (a violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations) should be cause for relief for Medellin; 2) whether such right was defaulted on by not being raised at trial; 3) whether a US federal court is bound by the Vienna Convention in accord with a 2004 ruling to that effect by the International Court of Criminal Justice; and 4) whether President Bush has the authority order Texas courts to follow the particular Vienna Convention article involved in the case (while also declaring that US courts are not bound by International Court of Criminal Justice rulings).  (The court previously agreed to hear the Medellin case in 2005, but dismissed it after a new appeal was filed by Medellin in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals raising substantially the same issues.  After the Texas court denied relief, Medellin's attorneys refiled a new cert. application with the US Supreme Court.)

• The Death Penalty Information Center has some data and background on the issue of foreign nationals on death row in the U.S here.
• The International Justice Project website has more background on the Medellin case here.