US Supreme Court sends case of Mexican teen killed by BP back to lower court

The US Supreme Court Monday declined to address the issue of whether non-US Citizens killed outside the US can have their day in American courts. The high court sent the case back to a lower court for reconsideration.

The case arose from a June 2010 shooting death of Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca at the hands of US Border Patrol Agent Jesus Mesa Jr.

Mesa shot and killed Hernandez in a concrete-lined ditch bed of the Rio Grande river, which separates El Paso, Texas, from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

The agent was on the U.S. side of the border when he fired his gun, striking Hernandez Guereca, who was on the Mexican side. The Border Patrol said the agent was attacked by rock throwers on the Mexican side.

U.S. officials chose not to prosecute Agent Mesa in the killing of the Mexican teenager and the Obama administration refused a request to extradite him so he could face criminal charges in Mexico.

Lower courts dismissed the parents’ lawsuit, in which they claim Mesa violated Hernández’s rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the US Constitution. The parents argued that the lawsuit is their only chance for some measure of justice in their son’s death.

According to the majority decision, “a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. The panel held Hernández lacked any Fourth Amendment rights under the circumstances, but the shooting violated his Fifth Amendment rights.”

In its majority decision, the US Supreme court wrote, “This Court declines to address these arguments in the first instance. The Court of Appeals may address them, if necessary, on remand. The facts alleged in the complaint depict a disturbing incident resulting in a heartbreaking loss of life. Whether petitioners may recover damages for that loss in this suit depends on questions that are best answered by the Court of Appeals in the first instance. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CONTRIBUTED TO THIS ARTICLE