Exclusive Guest Post For Polipundit: Free Compean And Ramos By Duncan Hunter

PoliPundit ^ | 3/5/07 | Duncan Hunter

[pissant]

I would like to thank Polipundit and Michael Illions, who has been helping out my campaign, for giving me the opportunity to write a guest post about the injustice that has been done to two of our border guards, Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, both of whom have been sentenced to jail for more than a decade each.

Now certainly our border patrol agents are not above the law and it is not acceptable for them to abuse or mistreat illegal aliens. That being said, the Border Patrol is America’s first line of defense against the terrorists, drug smugglers, and gangs who try to illegally enter the United States. Acting as the first line of defense for our country, the men and women of the Border Patrol are in a very dangerous position. Every day they risk their lives guarding our borders.

I have read the relevant portions of the trial transcript. Agents Ramos and Compean have a version of the facts that is different than the drug smuggler’s. However, it is not necessary to determine whose testimony is more believable (although I find the Border Agents’ testimony more credible than the drug smuggler’s) for this reason: even if you believe the drug smuggler’s testimony that he was slightly wounded while escaping to Mexico, his wounding cannot, by the greatest stretch of criminal justice, justify the 11 and 12 year prison sentences given to Ramos and Compean. The average convicted murderer in America spends less than 8 1/2 years behind bars. That means that Ramos and Compean have been given murder sentences for the slight wounding of a drug smuggler. Thus, the prison sentences of these two agents represent a severe injustice.

For those who point out that the agents picked up the expended brass from their pistols after the incident and did not report it to their superiors, the answer is simply that picking up brass and failure to report is not murder and does not justify a murder sentence in the federal penitentiary. As a member of the Armed Services Committee for 26 years, I have never seen a Marine or soldier treated as severely as Ramos and Compean.

We cannot turn our back on Agents Compean and Ramos or the rest of the public servants in the U.S. Border Patrol and that’s why I urge George Bush to pardon both agents. I intend to keep attention focused on this case to insure their safety while they are in prison and to secure their release as soon as possible so they can return home to their families. That is also why I introduced H.R. 563, which would pardon Compean and Ramos. The bill already has more than 85 sponsors in the House. If that bill fails and President Bush does not do the right thing, I pledge that if I’m elected President, one of my first acts will be to grant pardons to both agents.

[Sue Bob]

Mary Stillinger is no young pup and has been trying cases against Kanof for many years. She has a good reputation among the legal community in El Paso, according to my source-who admittedly is a friend of hers.

Perhaps Ramos didn't have the resources to help her put on a really good case.

I'm beginning to wonder if the union unduly influenced Ramos and Compean to believe that they couldn't get convicted. During Compean's administrative review for suspension, his union rep kept expressing that he thought they would be exonerated.

Had I been Mary Stillinger and offered a year's probation in a half-way house (or whatever the offer was--I know it was good), I would have been on my knees begging him to take it. From what I understand, he could have done his time and then been able to hire on as a deputy or officer--though not law enforcement at the federal level.

[erton1]

Yes I agree with you regarding Stillinger. It is my understanding that Stillinger represented Ramos and Ramirez represented Compean. I think these defendants had unrealistic expectations as to the result of a trial. I am not sure where they got that idea, but their attorneys failed to dissuade them of that notion. I would have had a heart to heart talk with client regarding the plea bargain. Especially in this case where you are going up against the USA office and it appears one lawyer is just tagging along an dnot really pulling a full load. That should have been fairly obvious to the attorneys and defendants somewhere in the process of trial preparation.

[AndrewC]

The other 13 feet might have been the levee slope?

No, I don't think so. I read the testimony as Compean facing Davila with each one on the opposite lip because of the following part of the testimony I last posted.

13 Q. The -- let me point you to points B and C. Is that where
14 the irrigation ditch is, the drainage ditch?

I rather think that Mr. Loya meant the internal part of the ditch which would be 30 feet. The north and south slopes would account for the remaining 13 feet. The water would be somewhere in the bottom 30 feet. But, I suppose that it could be 13 feet from the bottom of the levee slope. That would produce

__
  \
   \
    \
     \__                 ______
        \               /
         \             /
          \_____WW____/
17-30-13-------30--------|


Not to scale.

[sumthinelse]

>>The defendants stipulated that Ramos wounded OAD.That is as strong of evidence that is needed. There is no point to put any additional evidence. In fact if you tried, that would upset the judge for wasting the court's time. I don't know where you get your info from, but if you think the prosecutor 'bluffed' the defendants into a stipulation on this point, I have a bridge to sell you. Your whole post is full of ifs and possibly. that is not how a trial works. Why do think the defense stipulated that Ramos shot and wounded OAD?<<

Thanks.

I looked at the transcript again and could not find the weaker testimony I thought I read. So I was probably mistaken. Honest mistake. I apologize.

This was just something I had been wondering about, but now it's becoming clearer.

[AndrewC]

The issue of the 3 jurors caving at the end was the subject of a motion for new trial and heavily discussed in previous threads.

Caving? Did you miss the part about the foreman passing on information from the judge that was not correct? Or maybe he was correct and a hung jury is not an allowable outcome? I have not been in on any other threads discussing any caving. I discuss the testimony and what it shows.

[AndrewC]

Mr Loya spoke highly of his son-in-law's attorneys, Ms. Stillinger, and Mr. Peters. But I still don't understand how they allowed Kanof to savage Ignacio.

[calcowgirl]

Other information that Mr. Loya gave me was that Ms. Ramirez was not a criminal lawyer, but she was a divorce lawyer. Mr. Antcliff, a criminal lawyer was hired the Friday before the trial commenced, three days later. Ms Ramirez sat on the case and did "nothing" for the intervening year, and I presume that is the reason Antcliff was hired. You can see the representation from part IV and part V of the testimonies.

It will take me a while to catch up on this thread, as I can't spend much time today. As to Maria Ramirez, from the transcripts of jury selection, I remember her mentioning that she was a municipal court judge.

4  MS. RAMIREZ: Your Honor, I had submitted amended
5  proposed jury questions to the Court. And the only other
6  questions I wanted the Court to ask the panel was if they knew
7  me, because I was a municipal court judge.

If you google her name, you will find that she was elected in 2001 and then reelected, in a June 2005 runoff election, as Judge of El Paso Municipal Court No. 1 (The May 2005 election did not result in a clear winner, hence the runoff). Was the Compean defense just a second or third job for her? I did hear Compean's wife on local radio a couple months ago. She said something like "Ms. Ramirez did the best she could do..." The tone of the comment was very kind and generous--at the time I wondered if Ramirez was a family friend representing Compean as a favor of some kind.

Also, I just checked the Court Docket for when Antcliff filed with the court. Sure enough, he was very late to the party (the trial started 2/21/2006.)

Notice of attorney appearance for Jose Alonso Compean 
• Maria B. Ramirez            - Entered: 04/01/2005
• Christopher Allen Antcliff  - Entered: 02/17/2006

Notice of attorney appearance for Ignacio Ramos
• Mary Stillinger             - Entered: 04/14/2005
• Stephen Gordon Peters       - Entered: 04/01/2005

[Bob J]

"But I still don't understand how they allowed Kanof to savage Ignacio."

By allowing their clients to testify.

[erton1]

I understand, apology accepted. I have wondered why the defense stipulated to this evidence and the only explanation that I could think of, is that it was part of the trial strategy to lessen the exposure of the defendants on cross exam from the prosecutor and maybe to bolster for the jury the legal justification argument. "We come here telling the truth and admitting Ramos shot OAD, but we were justified in our actions. Believe everything we are telling you."

[calcowgirl]

Had I been Mary Stillinger and offered a year's probation in a half-way house (or whatever the offer was--I know it was good), I would have been on my knees begging him to take it. From what I understand, he could have done his time and then been able to hire on as a deputy or officer--though not law enforcement at the federal level.

I'm wondering if the financial penalty that Kanof attached to that plea deal (i.e. paying all of OAD's medical bills) was what made them decline the offer. Ramos already had financial problems at the time of trial (he was basically broke at the time).

[erton1]

Duh, they decided to have their client testify and he makes a bad witness. They must have known this after their pre-trial prep with him. I think this was one the reasons they stipulated to the evidence that their client shot and wounded OAD, so as lessen the cross exam of Ramos by the prosecutor. In addition, they probably wanted to lessen the chance that Ramos could perjure himself.

[Bob J]

10 Q. Okay. And so from point C to point B, that's -- C to B is
11 43 feet, correct?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. And then from point B to point A, which is the canal road,
14 that's an additional 15 feet?
15 A. Yes.

Assuming the "canal road" is the levee road, point B looks like the north edge of the canal road. The 13 feet you're missing is the levee slope to the edge of the ditch...as I said before.

22 Q. Okay. Okay. Well, let's assume it is. And I think
23 this -- so you're saying the van driver is back there, and
24 you're standing on the lip of the road, and you see his eyes?

LIP OF THE ROAD, not edge of the ditch. Am I the only one who sees this stuff right off?

[Bob J]

"I'm wondering if the financial penalty that Kanof attached to that plea deal (i.e. paying all of OAD's medical bills) was what made them decline the offer. Ramos already had financial problems at the time of trial (he was basically broke at the time)."

Possibly but they could have raised that in 24 hours on Free Republic alone. I would have donated.

[erton1]

There was NO information from the judge that was passed onto the jury by the foreman that incorrect.The jury never notified the judge that it was deadlocked. There was not even a further charge given to the jury urging them to reach a verdict. The only information given the jury regarding their deliberations was given in the jury charge when they began their deliberations. It is somewhat obvious that the jury was split 9-3 in favor of guilt and on the last day the 3 holdouts caved and voted to convict. This is fairly typical of the jury process where there are 2 factions and one of the factions gives in at the end. The motion for new trial and supporting affidavits are posted somewhere, and frankly they are not that strong. You seem to imply that this misconduct, but I don't know how you can buy that argument. It did preserve the potential error for the appeal, but it has little likelihood of success, IMHO.

[Bob J]

Once the decision was made to reject the plea deal, I don't see how they could NOT testify. Everything the prosecution had was bad for them and they would be reduced to impeaching the testimony of BPA's and US investigators. The only other opportunity was going after the immunity agreements, but from what I know unless the agreements are with known criminals, that's tough to do.

And what about their reasonable suspicion about OVD being a drug smuggler? OVD admitted the drugs later but R&C didn't know anything about that because they didn't know what was in the back of the van at the time of the shoot.

This is further complicated because they might not have even had the right van...Comp initially identifies it as a dark blue minivan but OVD was driving a light grey full size van. I can see making a mistake between dark blue and say black, but dark blue and light grey? Compean must have had field glasses out there and even if he didn't the difference between dark blue and light grey and the size of the vehicle is not a mistake any reasonable person might make, especially a trained BPA.

This throws Comps testimony about how he knew of the van in question. How could that mistake have been made?

We all know that LEO's and detectives, particularly those wanting to make huge busts, recruit "snitches" from minor busts. The let them walk on the condition they make it up later by passing juicy tips about future drug activities they learn about. It might be reasonable to believe that Comp "got a call" about the possible smuggling and then radioed it in without verifying because it was going down right then. The snitch might have learned of the load, but was not certain of the vehicle. The BPA testified that vans are used frequently in moving drugs, so when Comp called it in he made a guess. It appeared to me that Comp and Ramos worked together on these things, partners. That would explain why Ramos butted Juarez off the "eye" during the chase. It looks like "the eye" gets most of the credit for the bust and Compean was on the other side of the ditch...not in a good position for any credit other than calling it in. So Ramos's state of mind at the time was "This is my and Comp's bust, it's from our snitch, it's our load, so get out of the way rookie!"

The "black shiny object" and "gun in hand" stories were not compelling to me either. I might believe it if they had OVD cornered or something like that, but once OVD breaks free and is so close to getting back to Mexico, what possible reason could he have for shooting at them? Even the "pointing" is weird because you'd think if he pointed he would shoot. All pointing a gun would do is invite a justified barrage of gunfire from the agents present. If that's going down you might as well take out the gun closest to you. But why would OVD want to die over drugs that were not his? All he got out of it was a payday and that was gone once he lost the load.

Questions, questions.

[erton1]

I doubt if the restitution would have made them decline the plea bargain. Restitution is typically part of a plea bargain and the defendants are normally given time over the probationary period to pay the restitution. I think that they could raise the $ from their supporters given some time.

[Paperdoll]

Rep. Hunter's BP policy is only one small facet in a multitude of reasons why he should be our next President.
And according to today's leftist one-two attempted punches, he is doing very well, thank you.

[AndrewC]

Duh, they decided to have their client testify and he makes a bad witness

Where have you been guy? He was an excellent witness. Savaging was putting words in his mouth, badgering him, and actually lying about what he testified to.

A bad witness was Juarez, who never saw Ramos, who would have been to his right and above him towards the van just behind Davila, yet he testified that Ramos chased Davila into the vega.

[Sue Bob]

If you were a federal prosecutor, would you have prosecuted them? The prosecutor did have discretion not to.

[sumthinelse]

>>"I'm wondering if the financial penalty that Kanof attached to that plea deal (i.e. paying all of OAD's medical bills) was what made them decline the offer. Ramos already had financial problems at the time of trial (he was basically broke at the time)."

Possibly but they could have raised that in 24 hours on Free Republic alone. I would have donated.<<

I don't know how much that amount would have been. OAD went to the Beaumont military hospital, and you know how the government charges (you are a taxpayer after all). Going by the amounts collected by the "victim" in the Sipe case, I wonder. Also, wouldn't agreeing to a payment like this give ammunition to OAD's civil case against the agents?

If Free Republic gave unlimited funds to the agents, I think we might have seen an "OJ" defense team, which would not have stipulated to the chain of evidence.

What does it mean when you agree to pay $500 a month and you can't pay it? Does that violate the plea agreement, and then what?