Posted on 01/18/2007 2:13:50 PM PST by alienken
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INVASION USA Congressmen appeal to Justice for border agents As prison sentences loom, Republican lawmakers petition attorney general
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: January 10, 2007 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez As two border patrol agents face the commencement of prison terms for shooting and wounding a man smuggling drugs into the U.S, five congressman are calling on Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to intervene. The lawmakers have asked President Bush to pardon Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, who were sentenced to 12 years and 11 years, respectively, in October. But the sentences are scheduled to begin Jan. 17, and in lieu of a pardon, the congressmen are asking Gonzalez to request the Justice Department to direct federal prosecutors not to oppose a court motion to keep the agents free on bond during the appeals process.
The drug smuggler was granted immunity for his testimony.
Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.; Ted Poe, R-Texas; Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C.; Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.; and Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.; will announce their effort at an 11 a.m. news conference today in the nation's capitol.
(Story continues below)
The lawmakers said in a statement "several discrepancies in the government's case strongly question whether justice has been served, and permitting these men to be incarcerated in the interim puts their lives at risk."
The congressman will be joined today by Compean, former Border Patrol agent Andy Ramirez of Friends of the Border Patrol and T.J. Bonner and Rich Pierce of the National Border Patrol Council.
Bush has received a letter about the case from more than 50 Congress members, and Grassfire.org has an online petition calling on the president to pardon the agents.
Rohrabacher told WND last month he considers the case "the greatest miscarriage of justice that I've seen in my career."
"Two brave Border Patrol agents trying to enforce the president's nonsensical border policy ending up being sent to prison, while an illegal alien drug smuggler is given immunity and walks free," he said.
White House press secretary Tony Snow has said he cannot comment on presidential pardons.
As WND has reported, a federal jury convicted Compean, 28, and Ramos, 37, in March after a two-week trial on charges of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence and a civil rights violation.
Ramos is an eight-year veteran of the U.S. Naval Reserve and a former nominee for Border Patrol Agent of the Year.
On Feb. 17, 2005, Ramos responded to a request for back-up from Compean, who noticed a suspicious van near the levee road along the Rio Grande River near the Texas town of Fabens, about 40 miles east of El Paso. A third agent also joined the pursuit.
Fleeing was an illegal alien, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila of Mexico. Unknown to the growing number of Border Patrol agents converging on Fabens, Aldrete-Davila's van was carrying 800 pounds of marijuana.
Aldrete-Davila stopped the van on a levee, jumped out and started running toward the river. When he reached the other side of the levee, he was met by Compean who had anticipated the smuggler's attempt to get back to Mexico.
"We both yelled out for him to stop, but he wouldn't stop, and he just kept running," Ramos told California's Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.
"At some point during the time where I'm crossing the canal, I hear shots being fired," Ramos said. "Later, I see Compean on the ground, but I keep running after the smuggler."
At that point, Ramos said, Aldrete-Davila turned toward him, pointing what looked like a gun.
"I shot," Ramos said. "But I didn't think he was hit, because he kept running into the brush and then disappeared into it. Later, we all watched as he jumped into a van waiting for him. He seemed fine. It didn't look like he had been hit at all."
The U.S. government filed charges against Ramos and Compean after giving full immunity to Aldrete-Davila and paying for his medical treatment at an El Paso hospital.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas issued a statement in September arguing "the defendants were prosecuted because they had fired their weapons at a man who had attempted to surrender by holding his open hands in the air, at which time Agent Compean attempted to hit the man with the butt of Compean's shotgun, causing the man to run in fear of what the agents would do to him next."
The statement said, "Although both agents saw that the man was not armed, the agents fired at least 15 rounds at him while he was running away from them, hitting him once."
Ramirez of Friends of the Border Patrol said the drug smuggler has "fully contributed to the destruction of two brave agents and their families and has sent a very loud message to the other Border Patrol agents: If you confront a smuggler, this is what will happen to you."
It went like this: even if the agents had probable cause to believe that the suspect was a "fleeing felon", (which is in doubt in this case), the American people have determined, through their courts, that they don't want their police shooting at fleeing felons who don't pose a threat to the cops or someone else.
The obstruction charge was more of an "add charge", and a way to show mens rea than a way to get these guys serious prison time.
If you're making a deal based on your drug crime's possible consequences, I don't see how the 800 lbs of pot is NOT relevant?
Even people trying to grab their ankles to help crimaliens don't make these sweetheart deals for criminals who only committed a misdemeanor.
Good info, thanks. I thought the "mandatory" was for the Obstruction.
WP Herald
Aug/16/2006
Union chief calls for new trial of Border Patrol agents
Jerry Seper
The Washington Times
Two U.S. Border Patrol agents facing 20 years in prison for shooting in the buttocks a drug-smuggling suspect should get a new trial because they are "victims of prosecutorial misconduct," including an unjust grant of immunity, says the head of the National Border Patrol Council.
NBPC President T.J. Bonner said exonerating evidence was withheld during the March trial of Senior Agents Ignacio "Nacho" Ramos and Jose A. Compean, whose sentencing is set for Tuesday, adding that the agents followed long-established Border Patrol policies in the incident.
He also said the suspect fled into Mexico after the shooting but later was given immunity on drug-smuggling charges to testify against the agents.
"This thing stinks to high heaven," Mr. Bonner said. "I am outraged and at a loss to explain why there were so many irregularities in this case. The only thing that is clear is that the prosecutors pointed their guns at the wrong guys, the good guys, and they let the bad guy walk. Now they want to send these agents to prison for doing their job. "That offends me, and I believe most Americans would agree," he said.
On Friday, two of the 12 jurors who convicted the agents told the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Ontario, Calif., that they were pressured by prosecutors to return guilty verdicts and that other jurors sought a quick verdict because spring break was a week away and they wanted to avoid a long deliberation.
Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila was wounded as he ran from the agents along the Rio Grande near El Paso, Texas. The agents said he pointed what appeared to be a gun at them as they tried to apprehend him. More than 800 pounds of marijuana, worth $1 million, was found in the van he abandoned at the river's edge.
Aldrete-Davila is suing the federal government for $5 million, saying his civil rights were violated.
A federal jury in El Paso convicted Ramos, 37, and Compean, 28, in March of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence and a civil rights violation. The shooting occurred Feb. 17.
Nice try. I said I'd vote to impeach because of his utter dereliction of his duty where the borders are concerned, not because of his unwillingness to pardon these guys. Although, if Bush had been doing his job, the situation may not have come up in the first damn place.
You're entitled to that opinion.
How very generous of you.
We need to keep up the campaign and get our guys out of Prison before any convicted Drug Smugglers they may have put there, do them harm..
sw
Phyllis Schlafly January 3, 2007
--excerpted--
President George W. Bush pardoned 16 criminals including five drug dealers at Christmastime, but so far has refused to pardon the two U.S. Border Patrol agents who were trying to defend Americans against drug smugglers. It makes us wonder which side the self-proclaimed "compassionate" President is on.
Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean were guarding the Mexican border near El Paso on February 17, 2005 when they intercepted a van carrying 743 pounds of marijuana. For what happened next, they were convicted and sentenced under a statute that was designed to impose heavy punishment on criminal drug smugglers caught in the commission of a crime.
The two agents are scheduled to start 11- and 12-year prison terms, respectively, on January 17, for the crime of putting one bullet in the buttocks of the admitted drug smuggler, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, and failing to report the discharge of their firearms. The non-fatal bullet didn't stop the smuggler from running to escape in a van waiting for him on the Mexican side of the border.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher called the two agents heroes. "Because of their actions, more than a million dollars in illegal drugs were stopped from being sold to our children. Bringing felony charges against them is a travesty of justice beyond description."
The White House and the U.S. Department of Justice are stonewalling requests for a presidential pardon from 55 Members of Congress and U.S. citizens who have sent at least 160,000 petitions and 15,000 faxes. When the Bush Administration deigns to respond at all, the official line is that the Border Patrol agents got a fair trial.
But that's not true; they didn't get a fair trial. They were convicted because the Justice Department sent investigators into Mexico, tracked down the drug smuggler, and gave him immunity from all prosecution for his drug smuggling crimes if he would please come back and testify against Ramos and Compean.
It was massively unfair to give immunity to an illegal alien narcotics trafficker while destroying the lives and families of two Border Patrol agents who risked their lives to stop him. Ramos and Compean were convicted mainly on the testimony of the immunity-sheltered drug smuggler, whose integrity should have been called into question, but Ramos and Compean were forbidden to do that during the trial.
The prosecutor even tried to get Ramos and Compean convicted of attempted murder! The jury acquitted them of that outlandish charge, but the government still asked for a sentence of 20 years for the other counts on which they were convicted.
How did the prosecution go from an administrative violation for failing to report a firearm discharge, with the penalty of perhaps a 5-day suspension, to prosecution for intent to commit murder?
After the trial, 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.
There were a couple of factual discrepancies between the smuggler's story and the agents' testimony, but the government chose to believe the immunity-motivated repeat drug smuggler rather than Border Patrol agents with clean records. Ramos was nominated for Border Patrol Agent of the year in 2005, and Compean served honorably in the U.S. Navy before joining the Border Patrol.
The Bush Administration tidied up Aldrete's wound at a U.S. hospital at our expense and opened the way for him to sue the U.S. government for $5 million for violating his civil rights, which he is now doing.
--snip--
Uh no the illegal would be in Mexico and more than likely planning his next drug run into the U.S. under another name and location. If the U.S. Attorney had he asked the Mexican government to surrender the perp {highly unlikely he would have entered Mexico to do so} would have been told to go pound sand. He escaped remember? Oh yea sure the Mexican government would have said here ya go. Right sure uh huh.
The only reason the US attorney was allowed to enter Mexico to talk to the perp to start with was because he brought a check book or maybe cash. Now I do wonder what the Mexican governments cut was in that $5M. First likely was a promise of amnesty of course so their mule could make more money for them. Now there is not a BP agent in the U.S. who will dare lay a hand on him.
What you said!
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
10/18/2006
Jurors say they were misled to convict agents
http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_4508579
Louis Gilot
EL PASO, Texas -- One man and two women on the jury that convicted two former El Paso Border Patrol agents of shooting a drug smuggler in the buttocks last year said they were misled into agreeing with a guilty verdict, according to a motion filed Tuesday.
Mary Stillinger, the lawyer for one of the agents, Ignacio Ramos, thought the jurors' statements should be grounds for setting the verdict aside and having a new trial for Ramos and fellow agent Jose Alonso Compean.
The men are scheduled for sentencing Thursday and face a 10-year mandatory sentence that legal experts said they have almost no chance of avoiding.
There was no way of knowing 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 said they hadn't had an opportunity to review the motion and could not comment on it.
The three jurors, identified in court documents as Robert Gourley, Claudia Torres and Edine Woods, said they were still holding out on a guilty vote by the second day of deliberation.
"I did not think the defendants were guilty of the assaults and civil rights violations," Woods wrote in her sworn affidavit.
Compean and Ramos were found guilty of assault with serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, a civil-rights charge and obstruction of justice in the Feb. 17, 2005, shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila near Fabens.
Stillinger, the lawyer, said she saw some jurors crying after the guilty verdict and later got in touch with them.
The problem was that the jurors were under the impression that a hung jury was not an option. Gourley, a special education teacher, and Torres said that the foreman of the jury told them that Cardone would not accept a hung jury. Woods said she heard the same statement but could not remember which juror said it.
"Essentially, when they saw they could not convince the majority in favor of voting guilty, 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.
Gourley said he thought the foreman was relating something he heard directly from the judge and when he found no mention on hung juries in the court's printed instructions, "I had no reason to doubt the foreman," he wrote.
After the trial, Gourley told the media that he felt pressured by other jurors who wanted to resume their normal lives after more than two weeks of trial. He also said he thought 10 years in prison was a grossly inappropriate punishment for the agents.
"Had we had the option of a hung jury, I truly believe the outcome may have been different," he said.
The third juror, Woods, wrote, "I don't remember exactly what it was that made me change my vote to guilty on these charges, but I know I was very influenced by my belief, based on the other juror's statement, that we could not have a hung jury. I think I might not have changed my vote to guilty if I had known that was an option."
You are either on the side of the Mexican drug smugglers or our Border Patrol. You have picked the Mexican criminals
Shooting a drug smuggler in the back is Justifiable homicide if he died and a righteous shooting if he lived.
How many people die in this country overdosing on this crap these criminals are bringing in.
I wish every drug dealer got shot in the back or otherwise.
there are only two classes now: the political and the rest of us.
IOW, there is no justice, there's just us.
Scott James, a former Tucson agent, resigned after eight years of service in February, citing a lack of support for agents by the Department of Homeland Security.
He said that U.S. Border Patrol officials provided office space inside their headquarters to Mexican consulate officials, allowed the consulate to dictate the agents' activities, and gave the consulate information on ongoing investigations.
Such courtesies were not extended to consulate offices of other countries, James said. http://www.dailybulletin.com/portal/news/ci_3803897?_loopback=1
Consistently obnoxious on this subject.
If they had been arrested and convicted under Clintons watch there would not be one post supporting their harsh sentence.
dittos
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