Summary
Mario Bustillo, a citizen of Honduras, was arrested and accused of murder. After he was convicted and the conviction was affirmed on appeal, he filed a petition for review in state habeas court. Bustillo argued that American courts were essentially required to adopt the International Court of Justice’s interpretation of the Vienna Convention.
The state habeas court declined to review the case, and the Virginia Supreme Court did not hear Bustillo’s appeal. Bustillo then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case and consolidated it with Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon. In that case, Sanchez-Llamas filed a lawsuit claiming that he did not receive proper treatment because authorities did not notify him of a Vienna Convention right to have the Mexican Consulate notified of his detention, and state courts refused to suppress evidence that he divulged once in custody.
Alliance Defending Freedom funded an amicus brief at the Supreme Court arguing that the United States did not give up its sovereignty under the terms of the Vienna Convention and that the U.S. Supreme Court is not bound by the decisions of the International Court of Justice. In June 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that international court rulings do not supersede American law, nor do they give non-citizens special procedural protections in U.S. courts.