Posted on 09/12/2008 6:00:19 AM PDT by kellynla
EL PASO, Texas — Two former Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a drug smuggler and trying to cover it up have been denied a request for a new hearing.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans denied the request by Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean on Wednesday. The same court upheld the men's convictions in July.
No reason was given for the Wednesday's denial.
Ramos and Compean are each serving sentences of more than 10 years for shooting Osvaldo Aldrete Davila in the buttocks while he was fleeing from an abandoned marijuana load in 2005.
Aldrete was sentenced to 9 1/2 years in prison for his role in two seperate smuggling efforts later that same year.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
It’s like the old saying. Once you tell one small lie you have to keep telling bigger ones to make the previous ones believable. The first small lie here was when the agents didn’t report. But once the shooting became known due to the mothers of OAD and Agent Sanchez talking, the lies got bigger and bigger until they had one huge incredible story that the jury rejected.
BTW - I have some sympathy for Ramos in this because I think he was a casualty of Compeans incompetence. But what I cannot excuse Ramos for is choosing to back up Compean and what I believe was perjury on the stand.
Instead of being concerned about protecting Compeans job, he should have been thinking about protecting his family. Now he AND Compean are in prison and his family is suffering tremendously.
How stupid can one be?
If I was advising Ramos, or maybe he or someone he knows is reading this, I would urge if possible that he come completely clean and throw himself on the mercy of the court.
I don’t know if it is too late, but if I were a judge or jury I would look at the context and see that Ramos’s shooting was bad but done according to dept. policy, that he DID think there was immedaite danger not because OAD had a “black shiny object” but due to Compeans actions and all the lead flying around and that what compelled Ramos to lie and perjure was an effort to help his friend.
It doesn’t make what Ramos did was right, but it might be enough to get him out of the ten year mand and out of jail, his other actions and debt to society being punished by the time he has already served.
He’ll never work in law enforcement again, but he will be home and back with his family.
I’ll tell you one thing that disgusts me, that Compean had many opportunities to help out his buddy Ramos and keep from facing prison by telling the truth and making sure the judge and jury knew this was all his fault due to his hot headedness and that Ramos was not to blame for the bad shoot.
But he didn’t and still doesn’t. He allowed his friend to expose himself to ending his career dishonerably, a prison sentence, untold anguish on his family and friends, to save his own ass?
Compean, you may have been a good BP agent in your time but your actions after the shoot were completely selfish and cruel. I don’t have much respect for you a this point.
There still may be time to set things right, if you have the courage and honor to do so.
R&C were convicted on the ten year mandatory because the jury ruled there was no justifiable reason for the shoot and that brought in the assault with a deadly weapon charge.
But there has to be intent for that to play. Compean never intended to hit OAD. If he had told the truth up front he would have lost his job (for sure) but there would be no charges related to the cover up and no assault since he obviously missed on purpose. He NEVER intended on hurting OAD. His actions may have been stupid, unprofessional and against Dept. policy, but there was no physical assault on Compeans part.
Ramos was the one who shot OAD, but he did so in compliance with Dept. policy as well, due to hearing 14 shots being fired he honestly believed there was a life or death situation and acted accordingly. As it ended up, wrongly, but that is because he was acting on what turned out to be erroneous information. But that wasn't his fault.
So here we have Compean shooting but not intending to hurt or kill OAD and Ramos then doing so but on a reasonable conclusion based on the information available to him at the time.
But both are in prison based on the jury ruling that Compean did shoot to kill OAD without justifiable cause, and Ramos in prison for actually hitting OAD also without cause when there actually was justifiable cause.
But based on what Ibelieve happened here (shooting 14 shots to make a perp “dance”) Compean doesn't have the mental discipline or disposition to even be a BP agent.
So Ramos and Compean are in prison because they tried to save him a job for which he is not qualified.
The irony.
This thread is retarded.
It is the height of folly to accuse someone of perjury with no proof. No one testified as to Ramos actions which he contradicted in his testimony except Juarez and that had to do with emergency lights. Compean did not see Ramos until after the final shot. Juarez did not see Ramos until Ramos came back over the levee. Vasquez ditto. Jacquez ditto. Mendoza ditto. Richards ditto. Yrigoyen ditto(Ramos was on the levee). Arnold ditto. Any other discrepancy is to what exactly Ramos said at the ditch to Richards about Compean. Yrigoyen and Jacquez both testified that Richards was made aware that dirt was thrown in Compean’s face.
Hey Ajnin. What would you be charged with if you fired at someone that was fleeing and you did it for fun?
The credibility of Aldrete-Davila remains the proverbial elephant in the room for you Sutton apologists.
If Sutton had to do it all over again, you honestly think he'd still sign that immunity agreement with OAD...?? No way. And no immunity agreement, - no trial.
The only person throughout this entire ordeal that has ever attempted to claim that Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila was not armed is Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila himself. And he wound up eviscerating his credibility in so many different ways that I wouldn't even trust him to give me the correct time of day, - let alone testimony in court.
I think that maybe Ramos “owed one” to his partner (for whatever reason) and chose to take a fall for him. Poor guy.
Feel free to argue that the appeals court got it wrong, but that kinda' blows your Nifong gambit out of the water.
Actually, the proper question is, "do you have to report a discharge of your weapon?"
Let's see how our local Border Patrol agent responds.
I have tried, mightily, to give them the benefit of the doubt. I mean, no CONSERVATIVE would argue for extra-judicial execution, right?
I'm coming to the conclusion that they don't care. Not about the law, not about the Constitution . . . a Mexican got shot (do I need to remind anyone that we are talking about law enforcement officers?) so they think "no harm, no foul." How effed-up is that?
Think about it for a minute. "The law applies to me, but not for thee." How American. /sarc
See, it is you that continues to bring up that red herring. I asked about charges not reports.
Oh, don’t forget. Ramos and Compean didn’t have to file a written report. /sarc
Again with the red herring, but the actual statement was about an incident report. Compean did file the report of apprehension which is distinct from an incident report which, I believe, is filed by a supervisor. And all of those are distinct from a verbal report of a shooting.
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