In a 5-4 vote on August 5, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a stay of execution for Jose Medellin, a Mexican citizen, who was then executed in Texas that night. On August 7, Heliberto Chi, an Honduran
citizen, was also executed in Texas. Medellin's case had come before
the Supreme Court on two previous occasions because the International
Court of Justice had ruled that the U.S. had violated the Vienna
Convention on Consular Relations by not informing him and other foreign
nationals of their rights under that treaty. The U.S.