Posted on 01/29/2007 9:30:51 AM PST by SirLinksalot
If things went down as this article indicates, I don't want them on our side. We need cool, calm, law-abiding border patrol agents, not guys who think they have the right to mete out their own brand of justice.
Yes. Everybody knows that federal prosecuters are worse than terrorists, not to be trusted. /sarc
Note that this link provides evidence that the drug smuggler would not have been able to keep running after being shot. But instead of accepting the clear implication that Ramos is NOW LYING when he says he had no idea he hit the guy and that the guy kept running, the pro-BP agent folks argue this proves that Ramos didn't shoot the guy at all, but rather he was shot later either by himself or by the drug kingpin mad about losing his drugs.
Oh, but that link ALSO claims that the bullet wound proves that Ramos is telling the truth that the drug smuggler turned toward him in a threatening manner.
Pretty good deal, if you can get it -- the same story both claims the drug dealer was not HIT by the bullet, and that the way the bullet HIT him proves the defense position.
So, the bullet that was NOT shot by Ramos proves that the perp who was shot later in his house was "blading" toward Ramos when he was not shot by Ramos.
This is what passes for logic on the defense side. That and branding every prosecuter a crook, simply because a few democrats we know of are crooks.
I'm sorry, I missed what crime you are accusing Sutton of? Being uncomfortable with shooting people for being here illegally?
Which ones, the ones who shot at an unarmed fleeing man, or the ones that testified against them?
If your side supports shooting unarmed people in the back simply because you think they are in our country illegally, that isn't a side I want to be on.
Border patrol agent acquitted in excessive force case
January 27,2007
Andres R. Martinez
Monitor Staff Writer
BROWNSVILLE — A former U.S. Border Patrol agent was acquitted Friday of using excessive force to arrest an illegal immigrant in a retrial of a 2001 case.
A federal jury said David Sipe was not guilty of using excessive force against Jose Guevarra on April 5, 2000. The case was first tried in front of Judge Ricardo Hinojosa in McAllen’s U.S. District Court in 2001. At the time, a jury found Sipe guilty after a five-day trial.
But while preparing for sentencing in the 2001 case, Sipe’s attorney, Jack Lamar Wolfe, found evidence the U.S. Attorney’s Office had withheld information requested before the trial.
Wolfe cited in a motion for a new trial that prosecutors had not revealed at least four pieces of information:
l A government witness’ criminal background
l Testimony favorable to Sipe by one of his former co-workers
l Additional benefits given to witnesses, like Social Security cards and reimbursements
l Pictures of the victim re-enacting the arrest for investigators
Hinojosa granted the request for a new trial on April 11, 2003.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office appealed the decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which sided with the decision for a new trial on Nov. 19, 2004.
Sipe and Wolfe started preparing for a new trial, but Sipe applied for a change of venue in November last year. The case was subsequently moved to Brownsville’s U.S. District Court.
——
Andres R. Martinez covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4434.
THat rebuttal was hardly the "real facts" and was more of a joke.
This sounds like a repulsive piece of sophistry by one government lawyer in defense of another. McCarthy admits that the encounter was "so chaotic" that the other agents' testimony wasn't adequate to "get" Compean and Ramos, which was clearly Sutton's only priority. In such a high-adrenalin situation, apparently he would rather the agents stopped, held a meeting, and got out their law books, before deciding what to do. Obviously he has no experience of actually fighting crime in the real world.
He also says: "But did the indictment really have to be this severe? After all, the sentences are extremely harsh. Here, the agents have mainly themselves to blame. The government offered them very generous plea deals. Compean and Ramos spurned them."
Just maybe they spurned the deal because they felt they were innocent! This racket of bashing people because they will not cave in is a favorite of prosecutorial bullies.
Juries can be manipulated by prosecutors, so a jury verdict is no guarantee that justice was done. It's quite likely that Sutton was smarter and slicker than the agents' lawyers and the ordinary civilians on the jury. The idea that he was willing and able to pluck a big-time drug smuggler out of corrupt Mexico, solely in order to destroy a couple of agents whose conduct may or may not have been ideal, is frightening.
With the country flooded with drugs and illegal aliens, McCarthy wants us to believe that Sutton is an effective "law and order conservative?" Give me a break.
How about this quote: "Compean unleashed an incompetent fuselage"
Are we to assume that the Border Patrol is equipped with unmanned aircraft? Is that how agent Compean set off a "fuselage" at the smuggler? I suspect that the rest of McCarthy's tirade is just as inaccurate.
See, that's exactly what makes the pro-bp side look like idiots. "Why did all 12 jurors agree?" "Answer: They didn't"
Except they did. They all voted for conviction, on 14 of 15 counts. Unanimous verdicts.
Now later, for some reason known only to the jurors, three of them said they thought they had to vote with the majority (pretty stupid if true, what would the point be of having 12 jurors if 3 of them had to go along with 9 others).
It is likely they didn't know about the mandatory rules, and feel bad about it, and are trying to help change the outcome because they, like most of us, think 11 years is too long in jail for these guys.
But to say "they didn't" when the truth is they did, and only later changed their minds, is both dishonest and misleading.
BTW, did these jurors say that they would have voted not guilty on all 14 counts they voted guilty on, or just the most serious charges? I can't remember, at first the story was different than it was later but I can't remember which story was which anymore, there's been so many different stories -- They shot him, they didn't shoot him, he lied, he wasn't even there, he shot himself, Ramos shot him in a way the proves the guy was turning, the guy surrendered, he didn't, Compean slipped, he was talked in a fight, etc. etc.
Once you've told a lie, it's harder to convince people you are telling the truth. When the latest story you are circulating is your 5th version, you should have trouble getting people to listen to you -- but there are many who really want the BP agents to shoot all the illegals.
It's a good article. But none of this would've happened if the border had been sealed off. It's time to build the fence!
National Review is listening to the load of hooey being perpetrated by overzealous, politically ambitious (and little white lie teller) Sutton. They've just sunk their own credibility with this garbage. They don't know what they are talking about and they miss the big point and the big picture which is that people who smuggle marijuana into our country by the ton DO NOT DESERVE IMMUNITY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. I really hope Sutton feels the effects of his willingness to let dopers run free here (with $5 million in taxpayer dollars). I hope his property values fall when these same dopers he let run free in order to prosecute agents move next door to him.
y
Border agents aren't gonna bother to do their jobs with scumbags like sutton around. Why lose your pension or risk going to jail when you can let dopers skate right in with NO CONSEQUENCES WHATSOEVER. Much too easy a choice.
http://gunfinder.net/board/?topic=topic3&msg=375
What About the Jury?
Question: What about the jury? Why did all 12 jurors agree that both Border Patrol officers were guilty?
Three jurors now say THEY DIDN'T WANT TO VOTE GUILTY and are disturbed by the verdict.
Robert Gourley, Claudia Torres, and Edine Woods say they were told the verdict HAD TO BE UNANIMOUS, which was flat-out untrue.
After the trial, at least two jurors gave sworn statements that they had been pressured to render a guilty verdict and did not understand that a hung jury was possible.
In addition, some jurors allegedly bullied other jurors, intimidating them into changing their votes.
One juror said he thought that 10 years in prison for the agents was excessive punishment. "Had we had the option of a hung jury," he said, "I truly believe the outcome may have been different."
Another said of the jury foreman, "I felt like he knew something about the judge that we did not know. I did not think that Mr. Ramos or Mr. Compean was guilty of the assaults and civil rights violations."
In light of these juror statements, defense attorney Mary Stillinger asked that the verdict be set aside, but the judge oddly, arbitrarily denied the motion.
That wasn't "the news", that's the latest rehash of defense information from Jerome Corsi of WND. The testimony in the story this morning is consistant with the claims of the prosecutor, and is being used by the defense to both show that Ramos DIDN'T shoot the guy, AND that Ramos shot the guy in a way that shows the guy was "blading" toward him (only in the wrong direction from the way you'd expect).
The medical evidence was consistant with a man running away while zig-zagging to avoid being shot. The medical evidence also makes it highly unlikely that the guy kept running without pause when he was shot, but rather that he probably fell over and crawled away.
Ramos says the guy just kept running, so he thought he had missed (at least that's what he says NOW). But the medical evidence opposes the view, thus the argument that Ramos didn't hit the guy at all. In THAT story line, the "chain of evidence" was deliberately broken so that government agents could hide the real bullet and substitute a fake bullet shot into a cadaver to make it LOOK like the real bullet -- although in doing so the official court testimony was that the bullet could NOT be tied to the agent's weapon, so whoever did the planting of evidence was incompetent.
But as I said, if you go with the "never hit him" story, then you can't show the guy turned toward Ramos. So in the SAME story where we learn the evidence was faked and Ramos never HIT the guy, we are also told that Ramos DID hit the guy, and the bullet path shows the guy was running away but twisting toward ramos as if he was pointing a gun at him -- showing Ramos was in danger.
See, if you don't care about logic, you can make both those arguments in the same "news story", as if they are consistant. In the real world, you can't argue that the bullet that never hit the guy penetrated him in a way that shows he was pointing a gun at you.
BTW, try this experiment. Run a few steps, and then "turn while running away" as if you are going to shoot at someone. Chances are, if you are right-handed you are going to twist your left shoulder back, hold your right arm across your body and bend your elbow, and then when you turn your head back you will be able to easily sight your weapon for a shot.
Which is exactly the way the "evidence" shows the drug smuggler turning. Except he was left-handed, and they are arguing that you would in fact turn your left shoulder and stick your arm straight back at an awkward angle if you wanted to point at someone. Which I guess you could do, but it doesn't seem natural to me.
Of course, what really doesn't seem natural is that the drug smuggler pulled a gun and TWICE pointed it backwards, but never pulled the trigger.
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought the "new evidence" applied to this case and this prosecuter, not some case from 6 years ago involving a different agent.
My bad. I haven't followed THAT case.
In sutton's view, the doper is the hero. I just hope the doper moves in next door to him, what with all the five million in taxpayer money sutton's getting for him. sutton loves dopers and knows for a fact that that point of view is politically untenable. that is why he's started with this spin control crap, something that both national review and wsj have bit on. wsj used sutton's exact spin, lying that the agents shot the dirtbag 'in the back.' They used sutton's exact spin words to maximize the psychological effect instead of saying 'in the butt' which is the truth of what happened. Now they are all claiming that border patrol agents are with them. They are lying on that too, the dirty rotten skunks. i just hope sutton gets the dope dealer he deserves moving in next to him.
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