Posted on 10/19/2006 3:37:27 PM PDT by no dems
Edited on 10/19/2006 4:07:46 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Ex-border agents sentenced for shooting smuggler
AP
EL PASO, Texas -- Two former U.S. Border Patrol agents were each sentenced Thursday to more than a decade in federal prison for shooting a Mexican drug smuggler and then trying to cover it up.
Ignacio Ramos was sentenced to 11 years and one day, and Jose Alonso Compean was sentenced to 12 years. Both were fired after their convictions on several charges including assault with a deadly weapon, obstruction of justice, and a civil rights violation.
The men, neither of whom spoke in court, will be allowed to turn themselves in Jan. 17.
The agents have proclaimed their innocence in the Feb. 17, 2005, shooting of admitted drug smuggler Osvlado Aldrete Davila.
Aldrete was shot in the buttocks as he fled across the Rio Grande into Mexico after a confrontation with Ramos and Compean. The agents said they shot in self defense, but prosecutors charged that they had no reason to shoot at the fleeing man, who later claimed he was unarmed.
Since their convictions, support for the agents has swelled. Several prominent law makers, including U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, the Wisconsin Republican who chairs the House judiciary committee, have even called for a Congressional investigation into the agents' prosecutions.
The union representing most rank and file Border Patrol agents established a legal defense fund. And civilian border watch groups have asked the U.S. Attorney General's office to review the case and throw out the jury's guilty verdicts.
I think we need to ping every FReeper we can on this issue. Start a petition to the President of the United States to pardon both of these men, give them their jobs back, and fire both the Prosecutor and the Judge. This is despicable and needs to be remedies ASAP!!!!
I am going to write my Congressman today.
BTW, thanks for the update.
You know that for a fact? All the way up at that level? I seriously doubt it. I would like to see the paperwork on this one.
They lied in their reports after removing their shell casings from the scene.
Major no-no for a LEO.
Freepers defending obstruction of justice isn't pretty.
If the land along the border is private property, posted, and the property owner shoots the invader, is it not a case of protecting his property under the law?
This may be the war that is fought by the landowners, but, unfortunately, the farmers who use the cheap illegal labor don't want their labor force flow to be impeded.
The drug smugglers just have perfect cover.....mingling with the flood of other Mexicans.
Basically after the smuggler drew down on the one agent his backup went to his aid and shot the bad guy in the butt. When the smuggler got back home into Old Mexico he complained to his mommie who had a personal friend in a different office of the BP. This other office then called Washington and now the agents are going to prison. The hero Garcia who was trying to save his friend got the heaviest sentence for the birdshot in the butt. I heard they had to return the 700lbs of pot back to the mother....(unconfirmed) Welcome to Mexizona
Shhhhhh.... dont pay attention to those two innocent men behind the curtain
Only ONE of the guys removed the shell casings...the other didn't know he did it.
Lawyer seeks new trial for convicted Border Patrol agents
EL PASO, Texas -- A lawyer for one of two Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a suspected drug smuggler and then trying to cover it up has filed an appeal based on jurors' claims that they were misled into finding the agents guilty.
Mary Stillinger, a lawyer for former agent Ignacio Ramos, said in a motion filed Tuesday that the jurors' statements should be grounds for a new trial for Ramos and fellow former agent Jose Alonso Compean.
The men are scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday and could face more than 20 years in prison.
The agents, who worked in the Fabens area, were accused of shooting admitted drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, a Mexican national, in the buttocks, and then trying to cover it up.
In March, they were convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, obstruction of justice, a civil rights violation and other felonies. They were both acquitted of assault with attempt to commit murder.
Stillinger's motion included sworn affidavits from three jurors saying they were told by other jurors that the judge would not accept a hung jury.
"Essentially ... they conceded their votes, believing that they did not have the option to stick to their guns and prevent a unanimous verdict," Stillinger wrote in the motion.
It wasn't clear Tuesday whether U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone would consider the motion for a new trial before the sentencing. Officials with the U.S. Attorney's Office said they had not reviewed the motion and could not comment on it.
Juror Edine Woods said in an affidavit: "I did not think the defendants were guilty of the assaults and civil rights violations."
Juror Robert Gourley said in an affidavit that he thought the jury foreman was relaying instructions from the judge when the foreman said the judge would not accept a hung jury.
"Had we had the option of a hung jury, I truly believe the outcome may have been different," Gourley said in the affidavit.
Juror Claudia Torres also said in an affidavit that she was told by the jury foreman that the judge wouldn't accept a hung jury.
"I felt like he knew something about the judge that we did not know," Torres said in the affidavit. "I did not think that Mr. Ramos or Mr. Compean was guilty of the assaults and civil rights violations."
I immediately sent an email to comments@whitehouse.gov.
Drats President Bush is liberal on the wrong issues :(
I think we should all call the RNC and the White House for the president to act.
Find one better, if you can.
Noncitizens entitled to Fourth Amendment protection at border Brenda Sapino Jeffreys/Texas Lawyer August 16, 2006
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that noncitizens stopped at the U.S. border have the same constitutional rights as citizens to be free from false imprisonment and the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers.
In the Aug. 4 opinion, a three-judge panel found a Mexican woman who alleges she was manhandled at the border by a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agent in El Paso in 2001 is entitled to Fourth Amendment protection to "be free of entirely meritless arrests and the excessive use of force."
"No reasonable officer would believe it proper to beat a defenseless alien without provocation, as [plaintiff Maria Antonieta] Martinez-Aguero alleges," 5th Circuit Judge Jerry Smith wrote in Martinez-Aguero v. Gonzalez. Judges Jacques Wiener Jr. and Carl Stewart joined Smith in the opinion.
The appeal arose from a false arrest/ "constitutional tort" suit Martinez-Aguero filed in 2003 against Humberto Gonzalez, an INS border patrol agent. Martinez-Aguero alleges in her complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, that Gonzalez violated her First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights when falsely arresting her as she tried to enter the United States at the Pasa del Norte International Bridge.
Gonzalez sought summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity. He alleges that Martinez-Aguero, as a nonresident alien who had not gained entry to the United States, is not entitled to the constitutional protections of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments. In his summary judgment motion he cites United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, a 1990 decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court said that an alien who has no voluntary attachment to the United States is not entitled to extraterritorial Fourth Amendment protection — protection of the Constitution outside the boundaries of the United States.
In 2005, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone of El Paso denied Gonzalez's motion for summary judgment. Gonzalez filed an interlocutory appeal with the 5th Circuit.
In the eight-page ruling, the 5th Circuit affirmed Cardone's denial of Gonzalez's motion for summary judgment and remanded the suit to the district court for further proceedings.
Lawyers on both sides agree the 5th Circuit addressed an issue of first impression.
An attorney for Martinez-Aguero, Javier Maldonado, says the 5th Circuit's opinion sends a clear message to law enforcement officers.
"Millions cross the border each day. It's a great victory for everyone when a court says a public official is not above the law," says Maldonado, an El Paso solo who is a former executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of Texas.
Jeanne "Cezy" Collins, a lawyer for Gonzalez, says in deciding Martinez-Aguero, the 5th Circuit considered Verdugo-Urquidez and followed its own precedent in Lynch v. Cannatella (1987). In Lynch, the 5th Circuit held that "excludable aliens" — people who can be prevented from entering the United States — are entitled under the due process clauses of the Fifth and 14th Amendments to be "free of gross physical abuse at the hands of state or federal officials."
"They decided to interpret Verdugo in a way that the Lynch decision is still valid. I don't think it's a stretch that the 5th Circuit follows its own precedent," says Collins, a partner in Kemp Smith in El Paso.
Collins says Gonzalez has not decided if he will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 5th Circuit opinion.
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1155732410456
The Agents should be pardoned, but it won't happen before the mid-terms guys.
That's just reality.
Sorry.
Innocent? You haven't followed the case.
I don't see what the point in doing that.
Don't let the gate at airport hit you in the butt as you're leaving then.
I'm with you - Stone...when the GOP is worse than the Dems, you have to ask - mabbe it IS time to give it back to the Dems...couldn't be THAT much worse (except to have the runaway bride Pelosi hitting the airwaves everynight) -
All GOP is RINO - no difference anymore
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