Posted on 07/28/2008 11:46:09 AM PDT by Nachum
In a complex decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the major counts against former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean but reversed the obstruction of justice counts and sent the case back to a lower court for resentencing.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
I read the first 8 pages, which I found to be an excellent and succinct description of the events of that day.
It is funny that we have to read a court document to get a better description of the event than we ever got from the media.
While I'll probably get flamed for this, I personally think these two lied through their teeth, tried to cover up this shooting and deserved to get in trouble, but the sentence was way too excessive and it's pretty darned clear that the legislators did not have this kind of case in mind when they passed this law with the ten year mandatory minimum sentence. Hopefully this makes people think twice about the wisdom in having so many long mandatory minimum sentences. There are almost always going to be times when the facts are there for a conviction under a broad interpretation of the statute but the harsh mandatory sentence is not at all warranted.
That part of the narrative is describing statements made by them on the day of the shooting.
NOT statements they made later after they were arrested.
Compean panicked, went Rambo, whatever (I won’t argue one or the other). Ramos got the shaft because he stuck up for his partner.
The defendants were charged with tampering with an official proceeding under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c) by failing to report the shooting to their supervisors.They argue on a number of grounds that such a failure to act constitutes neither tampering with evidence nor inhibiting an official proceeding, an argument that we conclude has merit.
At this time, there seems little interest in changing the law to suggest it does not apply to LEOs who use a weapon while committing a crime.
Maybe once you get past this specific case, legislators really DON’T want to give special treatment to police officers who commit crime with their weapons.
In fact, one could argue that a police officer commiting a crime should be prosecuted more severely, because of the trust we put in them to enforce the laws. A police officer breaking the law causes more damage to society than a guy off the street.
He better do something before McCain gets in, he'd give them the death sentence for shooting at one of his favored constituents.
Their only “crime” was they actually attempted to defend the southern border of the United States against foreign invaders and criminals.
If they had looked the other way, they would be free men today.
I’m through about to page 20.
The court makes an extensive discussion of the immunity agreement.
My observation is that the defense was trying to get the court to grant immunity to Davila for the October incident, so that they could get him to testify about it.
If they had succeeded, Davila would still be a free man.
Because the defense failed, Davila was eventually arrested and charged in the October crime.
That may depend on your definition of substance, I think that appeals only review the proceedings themselves, not the evidence or strength/weakness of the case.
In this case they did not find substantial error in any of the court's actions, admitted that the jury could have gone either way, and only found that an agency inquiry does not equate to a judicial investigation and therefore does not merit a guilty verdict.
Seems to me that their findings are strained by the manner in which the agents were denied evidence on the nature of the perp and by stretching 'crime' to cover police judgement in the course of their duties.
It actually seems that this should never have gone to trial, but that's a different issue.
Any lawyers out there to correct me?
The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction on the "use of a firearm in a crime of violence" count, so they still face a mandatory minimum of 10 years each.
The defendants therefore advance the argument that the application of the statute to the facts of this case is novel, i.e., did not provide them with fair warning, because its application here frustrates the statute’s legislative purpose, has no support in the cases of this circuit, and makes for bad public policy. But cases in our circuit have permitted application of § 924(c)(1)(A) to police officers. See, e.g., United States v. Williams, 343 F.3d 423 (5th Cir. 2003); United States v. Winters 105 F.3d 200 (5th Cir. 1997).
I’m not a lawyer, but the general rule-of-thumb is that appeals courts rule on issues that are matters of law, whereas lower courts rule on substance, evidence, whatever. Does that help?
They were not charged with "use of a firearm in a crime of violence"; they were actually charged with "illegally discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence". That is why the conviction against them is bogus. Sutton deliberately reworded the statute to facilitate the conviction. He can't be allowed to get away with that.
This same court had ruled that "discharging" a firearm did not constitute an separate crime or an element of the crime. Prosecutors have to use the statute as it was written.
Yes, I read it.
Read J.Mark Brewer's legal brief.
In actuality, they have yet to actually be charged with violating 924(c)-1-A.
I'd be willing to push this thing to the Supreme Court.
This sucks.
We conclude. For the most part, the trial of this case was about credibility, and although the jury could have gone either way, it chose not to believe the defendants’ version of the crucial events of February 17. The trial of the case was conducted fairly and without reversible error.The exclusion of evidence relating to the size of the marijuana load and Aldrete-Davila’s alleged involvement in drug-trafficking events of October 2005 did not violate the defendants’ Sixth Amendment rights to present a complete defense nor did it deny them a proper cross-examination of a witness against them.
They were denied no right of due process for lack of notice that § 924(c) could be applied to police officers while performing law enforcement duties. Nor was the § 924(c)indictment defective. Moreover, the defendants were properly convicted of substantive crimes, not for violating Border Patrol policies. In instructing the jury, no reversible errors were committed and, finally, the evidence fully supports the jury verdict. We therefore affirm the convictions for counts 1 through 5 and counts 11 and 12.
However, we reverse and vacate the convictions for obstruction of justice under § 1512(c)—counts 6 through 10 of the indictment—because the Border Patrol investigation was not an “official proceeding” within the meaning of the statute. We therefore remand for resentencing not inconsistent with this opinion.
Repeating the portion most relevant for those who have argued this case for what seems like an eternity:
the evidence fully supports the jury verdictThree members of the 5th circuit -- judges of high standing and caliber, with experience, examined the trial records in detail, and conclude that the evidence FULLY SUPPORT the jury verdict.
I trust that these men know the law better than most of us here, and that they knew how to read the court transcripts, and the arguments made by the government and the defendants in briefs to the appeals court.
At this stage of the game, you have the 5th Circuit staring you in the face.
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