Posted on 02/09/2007 2:09:08 AM PST by ovrtaxt
Yep.
Good on ya! I likes it.
BUMP
ROFL! McCarthy? Facts? Oxymoron.
Please add me to your ping list.
These border agents DO NOT deserve jail time, and you should not waste a minute of your time feeling sorry for the drug smugglers.
Thank you. I've a piece or two of poetry floating around FR.
How's about collecting it on your homepage?
Freepers are so talented! :-)
So Tom, there's nothing in this case that strikes you as a bit odd?
How does WND get a partial snippet of a transcript that the congress can't get?
I've wondered if the transcript was being held NOT by those who want the BP agents in jail, but rather by sympathetic people who realise it will sink their case. This would explain the push to get a pardon before the transcript is out -- once a pardon is issued, it won't matter if the transcript shows they were propertly convicted.
The fact that WND has a small part of the transcript that they can twist to be helpful to the agents backs up this theory, which is of course conjecture on my part.
As to the cell phone, I don't know. I would point out that all the fingerprints in the world don't do a thing for you if you don't have the perp's fingerprints to match with the ones lifted at the scene. They had 8 sets of fingerprints in the Van, but again with the two agents saying they couldn't identify the smuggler, nobody in the BP agency ordered up any fingerprints. The testimony that he left a cell phone in the car was covered under the immunity agreement, of course.
They probably didn't have the smuggler's prints on file to test until after he was granted immunity. Without his immunity, they wouldn't have access to his fingers; no way mexico was going to give them access based on hearsay of a "mother told a mother" variety.
I would be very interested in whether fingerprints were ever run on the cell phone, and what was found. I'd also be interested in knowing if, even if they had his fingerprints on file) simply having a cell phone with fingerprints in the same car as the drugs would be enough to get an extradition notice. Without eyewitness identification of the smuggler as the man seen running from the van, he could argue that the cell phone was left at another time.
If Compean and Ramos had sat down and done a drawing of the smuggler, they might have had evidence to use against him, I don't know.
He was never getting tried for the drugs. The only way we could ever try him for the drugs is if he testified against himself. THere is nothing contradictory about those two statements, although my "never" obviously didn't include him being stupid enough to confess to the crime by mistake.
Of course he did not "HAVE" to prosecute (well, I don't know if "of course" is the correct word -- I don't think prosecuters have the absolute authority to ignore criminal wrongdoing). What I am saying is that it is perfectly reasonable and correct for him to have done so.
Yes, we don't know exactly (or more correctly, I don't know exactly, and I'm trying not to state as facts things I'm not sure of).
We know Sutton said there was no matches, but we don't know if that means before immunity or includes the time after immunity.
I would presume that the U.S. government did not have a mexican citizen's prints on file, given there is no record of him ever being picked up before on any crime. Either that, or they DID have his prints but they didn't match the 8 sets found. I don't know which is the case, I know they didn't have a match, and that statement could cover both cases.
Does anybody have information on whether a match was ever sought? At one point someone on the defense suggested there was question whether the smuggler was even THERE at the time of the shooting, but I don't think that was a credible defender, just one of the many theories thrown out.
Yes, he stipulated. That's been reported here. Don't ask me WHY he did so, but if you don't believe me, ping one of the defenders and ask, they'll tell you the same thing.
Isn't that amazing. The one thing that the prosecutor gets their lawyer to stipulate to turns out to be a lie --- or atleast a huge questionmark. No doubt Johnny Sutton pushed for this stipulation because he knew that if he had to prove it, then his whole case would fall apart just like the bullet did.
Does this tell you something about Johnny Sutton's modus operandi as a prosecuting attorney. He has to stack the deck and withhold evidence and present lies to a jury in order to get his convictions. We need to look at all of his cases now --- not just this one.
Yet he is willing time and time again to give guy like Aldrete-Davila the benefit of the doubt.
It's true, that's probably why they stipulated it. Compean got 11 years, and he didn't hit the guy at all, so the case hardly hinged on whether Ramos was a good shot or not.
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