Posted on 02/13/2007 6:40:43 PM PST by calcowgirl
He still shot at the guy. Missing doesn't relieve him of responsibility for the crime.
Which is one reason why I find this entire discussion of whether the bullet was his or not a red herring, and a distraction.
Note: Compean didn't hit the guy at all, and got more time than Ramos.
There is nothing in IJ's timeline that conflicts with mine. I was referring to the first ballistics test (below) of the bullet. I saw no evidence of a second ballistics test (that would have required Ramos' weapon), except that one is implied in the affidavit.
This of course has nothing to do with the transcripts, but I have to ask -- what was so great about Compean and Ramos that the President decided they had to be taken out? What did they do to get "crossways" so that they had to be framed with a shooting? How did those framing them get them to shoot their weapons and not report it?
It's bad enough pushing some grand conspiracy theory -- but when it doesn't even make sense?
Here is a web page that discusses the technique. It doesn't look like it should take more than a couple of hours to perform the tests, but can someone who has a friend in the FBI call or e-mail them and ask how long it should take them to do one bullet match?
Vol 6, p.277
13 Q. And when you go to Juarez and meet with him, do you find 14 that he's injured? 15 A. Yes, ma'am. 16 Q. What is wrong? 17 A. When he walked into the American consulate, he had a -- he 18 was limping. He had crutches, and he had a large -- he had a 19 catheter coming out. It was like a red hose, and it was 20 attached to a large urine bag.
I simply noted that relying on reports from people who say drug dealers should be a noble profession, in an argument that the BP agents were justified in shooting an unarmed man because he was a drug smuggler, was inconsistant.
Every prosecutor has to make judgment calls based on evidence and how he thinks his supervisor (who in this case is the President of the USA) wants the case to be handled.
ALL the spinning in the world cannot change the facts, as this official Guber'mint chart shows.
Thanks. I couldn't remember where that was.
Remember also that the other agents said that they saw Davilas having to be helped to the car on the other side of the border.
Wheew, what did Dat Mon say about being wordy?!
Remember, "dangerous area" is a subjective term. They could have said how many agents were shot in the past year -- except I don't think any agents were shot in that area. It was likely the generality of saying 'dangerous area' that made it inadmissable.
"Not reporting the Shooting" is an administrative error. Committing an administrative error in order to hide a crime is obstruction. Just like speeding is not a criminal offense, but speeding to get away from the scene of the crime is a criminal offense.
Now, why would I think that Ms. Kanof would lie once again? It was just a hunch. ;-) (Of course, you only learn later that the emphasis in her phrase relied heavily on the word original.)
A little bit of sleuthing reveals that the Border Patrol does indeed have limited Title 21 authority which does allow them to pursue drug smugglers in drug interdiction activities. What they are not authorized to do is engage in investigations. In fact, the Border Patrol was called out in a 1998 report by the OIG for not pursuing suspects enough! While I couldn't find any more current, comprehensive documents on the subject, I did find multiple references to the arrangement between the CBP and the DEA indicating the MOU for Title 21 authority is still in place. This PDF File includes a cover letter and the Report as an attachment. Some relevant excerpts are from the report are below:
.
In our continuing effort to address illegal immigration and related issues, we conducted an assessment of the Immigration and Naturalization Service's (INS) Border Patrol drug interdiction activities on the Southwest border.
. . .
The Border Patrol has no general policy on the pursuit of drug smuggling suspects who abandon drugs and flee. Based on our sample of drug seizure cases in fiscal year 1996, when drug smuggling suspects were seen and pursued, 36 percent of the cases resulted in the suspects dropping the drugs and escaping apprehension. There are circumstances when it is reasonable and prudent for agents to cease pursuit, primarily when the pursuit would endanger their life. However, Border Patrol agents often ceased pursuit, in effect allowing the suspects to escape, in order to focus on seizing and securing the drugs dropped by these suspects. INS officials informed us this is primarily due to a lack of understanding of the importance of suspect apprehension in drug interdiction cases. While there was no guarantee that the suspects in these cases would have been apprehended had the pursuit been uninterrupted, the ceasing of pursuit, even temporarily, greatly increases, and in some cases ensures, the likelihood that there will not be an apprehension.
INS practices for removing deportable aliens arrested during drug seizures enable many suspected drug smugglers to avoid any legal sanctions for their illegal entry into the United States. The Border Patrol allowed deportable aliens in our case sample who were involved in drug smuggling to be granted a voluntary return or voluntary departure to Mexico, usually with no further processing for drug or immigration violations. We believe that any time there is a reason to believe that an alien is involved in drug smuggling, that alien should be deported and not granted a voluntary return or voluntary departure. Some of these aliens who were voluntarily returned were convicted, aggravated felons and should have clearly been deported. The lack of aggressive removal practices resulted in only 31 percent of the deportable aliens in our case sample actually being deported.
. . .
Our report contains ten recommendations that we believe will assist INS and the Border Patrol in improving drug interdiction activities along the Southwest border between the ports of entry. These recommendations deal with drug storage and transfer practices; pursuit and apprehension of illegal alien drug smugglers; removal of deportable aliens arrested during drug seizures; and collecting, developing, and maintaining intelligence information and fingerprint databases on drug smugglers and smuggling operations. We hope our comments, suggestions and recommendations in the attached report will be useful in your efforts to address these issues.
. . .
Because the Border Patrol's mission with respect to drug smuggling activities is limited to interdiction rather than investigation, its drug seizure cases are usually turned over to the DEA or another federal, state, or local agency for investigation and prosecution.5 The Border Patrol works most frequently with DEA, which has the primary federal jurisdiction to investigate drug smuggling. The Border Patrol can decide to pursue prosecution itself only if DEA declines; however, the Border Patrol has rarely, if ever, utilized this option.
Cooperation among the Border Patrol, DEA, and other law enforcement agencies along the Southwest border is imperative for drug interdiction and investigation efforts to succeed. On March 25, 1996, INS and DEA signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The MOU provides guidelines, limitations of authority, delineations of responsibility, and general procedures for the Border Patrol to follow in its drug interdiction activities. Included in this MOU are guidelines for granting all Border Patrol agents limited federal authority to conduct searches for and seize drugs at or along the border as long as probable cause is established.6
This Inspection Report focuses on four issues: 1) Border Patrol drug storage and transfer practices; 2) policies on whether to pursue drug smuggling suspects or secure abandoned drugs; 3) the disposition of aliens arrested in drug seizure cases; and 4) the use of drug interdiction intelligence.
. . . Border Patrol agents ceased the pursuit to focus on the drugs because they apparently did not fully understand the importance of suspect apprehension in drug interdiction cases to enable prosecution and investigation.
. . . These numbers indicate an apparently unintentional shift in the Border Patrol's priorities from apprehension of illegal alien drug smugglers to securing dropped drugs.
. . . While individual situations may be complex, we believe that after weighing these risks and benefits, the emphasis should be on apprehending suspected drug smugglers over securing the dropped drugs
. . . If the Border Patrol stresses the importance of apprehending the suspected alien drug smugglers, it will increase the access to valuable drug intelligence as well as improve the opportunity to deter drug smuggling by criminal prosecution and subsequent deportation.
Ping to above, FYI.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54341
Note: I am not a lawyer, but in my own subjective way of looking at this, the prosecution and imprisonment of Ramos and Compean does not seem like justice. The attorney for Ramos says the government's failure to provide a document written by Chrisopher Sanchez is grounds for a mistrial. It's not clear whether the prosecution or DHS withheld this document.
(I am not sure if the last post I did worked -- I'll try to post it again here)
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54341
Note: I am not a lawyer, but in my own subjective way of looking at this, the prosecution and imprisonment of Ramos and Compean does not seem like justice. The attorney for Ramos says the government's failure to provide a document written by Chrisopher Sanchez is grounds for a mistrial. It's not clear whether the prosecution or DHS withheld this document.
Sorry, but your "relevation" means nothing.....because lying in an opening statement gets you nowhere.
Lets assume that her statement is indeed a lie. It is a statement about the law. Opposing counsel simply files a motion or adds the correct version of the law to the charge, which is decided before closing arguments. Then, in closing, you point out that the prosecutor "lied" (although you never say that in court..."misstated the law" would be the phrase), and tell the jury that the court will tell you that they did indeed have Title 21 authority.
In other words, the prosecutor's "lie" should have helped the defendants, not hurt them.
*placemarker*
Supervisors testified that Ramos did not verbally report the shooting. Ramos testified that he did not verbally report the shooting.
There are actually things that are not crimes OR administrative errors, but that become obstruction if done in order to hide or abet criminal activity.
For example, driving your car over the speed limit is punishable by a fine. But if you drive over the speed limit to get away after you cause an accident, it is "fleeing the scene of an accident", and is a criminal act. You wouldn't get far in court arguing that since speeding, say 10 miles of the limit, is only punishable by a few points and a small fine, the court can't give you prison for the act of fleeing the scene of the crime.
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