The Supreme Court, turning aside protests by dissenters that it was avoiding “questions of national importance,” on Monday opted to let the state courts of Texas be the first to decide a profound question of presidential authority. At issue when the case of Medellin v. Dretke returns to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is whether the president may direct state courts to obey a ruling by an international tribunal that runs counter to the states’ own laws or legal procedures.

The Court itself barely avoided confronting that issue, splitting 5-4 in deciding to end a federal habeas challenge by a Mexican national now under death sentence in Texas, Jose Ernesto Medellin. The majority spoke (in docket 04-5928) through an unsigned (Per Curiam) opinion that was announced by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist as the final of five final actions Monday on argued cases. The case was dismissed as “improvidently granted,” thus scuttling at least for now Medellin’s chances of challenging in federal court the failure of Texas authorities to allow him access to a consular officer from his home country after he was arrested on murder charges. Mexico did not learn of his situation until after he was convicted and sentenced to death, even though he had a right under the Vienna Convention to consult someone from his home country after being taken into custody.

As the Medellin case arrived at the Supreme Court and was granted review last December 10, it raised basic questions about the relationship between the World Court in The Hague and state courts in America in death penalty cases involving foreign nationals. The dispute turned on whether U.S. courts were bound by a World Court ruling that those courts must fashion a remedy for failure by state officials to obey the Vienna Convention issue. That controversy affected not only Medellin himself, but also 50 other Mexican nationals facing death sentences in U.S. states. The dissenters in the Court on Monday said that those issues “are as compelling now as tghey were when we granted” review.

In December, when the case was granted, there was no issue in the case over presidential authority to require state courts to abide by the World Court ruling. But, just before the case was argued in March, President Bush stepped into the controversy, and decided that U.S. courts should carry into effect the World Court ruling. In response, Medellin filed a new challenge in state court, seeking to take advantage of the President’s action. His lawyers asked the Supreme Court to put the case there on hold until after state courts had acted.

Medellin’s lawyers apparently took that step, not only because the President was now on their side, but also because of the prospect that the Supreme Court would rule against their client and other foreign nationals if it decided his case. The Justice Department had urged the Court to do just that, and reject Medellin’s attempt to raise his Vienna Convention claim.

The Court majority said on Monday that a number of complicating legal issues had cropped up since the case was granted, and suggested strongly that Medellin would not be likely to prevail in the current federal habeas proceeding if it were decided. But the majority noted that Medellin had filed his new challenge in state court, and took that as its cue to back out of the case at this stage.

“That state proceeding,” the opinion said, “may provide Medellin with the review and reconsideration of his Vienna Convention claim that the [World Court] required, and that Medellin now seeks in this prodceeding.” Once the state courts decide the new case, the majority commented, either he or the state of Texas could ask the Justices anew to rule. “In that instance, this Court would in all likelihood have an opportunity to review the Texas courts’ treatment of the President’s memorandum” and the World Court’s judgment in the Mexican nationals’ favor.

Texas officials already have raised serious questions about whether the Constitution does allow the President, in acting under an international treaty, to order state courts to set aside their legal procedures and defer to a global tribunal’s judgment. Officials have not yet filed their formal response in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to Medellin’s new challenge, so it is unclear just how far they will go to contest that assertion of presidential power.

One of the five justices in the majority — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — said in a separate opinion that she thought the Court should simply put the case on hold pending the state court case. But, there was no majority for that, she noted, so she joined in the dismissal of the federal claim.

No member of the Court offered a view on whether the President had the constitutional authority to order state courts to abide by the World Court decision. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor noted in the principal dissenting opinion that the Court majority “remains rightfully agnostic” on that fundamental constitutional question.

O’Connor, joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens, said the dissenters wanted the Court to send the case back to the Fifth Circuit to allow Medellin’s challenge to continue in federal court — with the possibility of waiting to decide until after the state courts had done so.

Justice Souter wrote a separate dissent agreeing that the case should go back to the Fifth Circuit, but with a broader examination than O’Connor had suggested. He said his preference would be for the Court to grant a stay while the Texas courts acted.

Justice Breyer, joined by Justice Stevens, also dissented, arguing in favor of a stay by the Court, but agreeing, in the absence of a majority for that option, that the Court should order that Medellin’s federal case proceed in the Fifth Circuit. Breyer wrote that Medellin’s claims in state court would be stronger than they would be in federal court, and suggested “the very real possibility of his victory in state court.”