Monday, January 19, 2009

Bush commutes sentences of former US border agents


By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – In his final acts of clemency, President George W. Bush on Monday granted early prison releases to two former U.S. Border Patrol agents whose convictions for shooting a Mexican drug dealer fueled the national debate over illegal immigration.

Bush, responding to heavy pressure from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike, commuted the prison sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. The two guards from El Paso, Texas, each were sentenced to more than 10 years for the shooting, which they tried to cover up. They will be released within two months.

Opposition to their convictions, sentencing and firings has simmered ever since the shooting occurred in 2005.
"After four years of fighting this, it's taken a toll on me and my daughter, and really the whole family," said Joe Loya, Ramos' father-in law, who has received tens of thousands of supportive e-mails and spent much of the past two years traveling the country to speak about the case. "We wouldn't give up. ... I knew sooner or later God would come through — that finally it would happen."

He said his daughter, Monica Ramos, called from New York after learning the news that her husband soon would be released from a federal prison just outside Phoenix.

"She could hardly speak," Loya said.

The border agents' case became a rallying cause for conservatives concerned about border protection. On talk shows, people sympathetic with the agents argued that the men were just doing their jobs, defending the U.S.-Mexico border against criminals.

Bob Baskett, Compean's attorney in Dallas, cited widespread congressional support from the bipartisan congressional delegation from Texas. "I think the president did the right thing," he said. "An awful lot of people did an awful lot of work to get this done."

David Botsford, a lawyer for Ramos in Austin, Texas, said he had been guardedly optimistic that the commutations would be granted because of the support from Congress and the thousands of people who had sent letters of concern. The president has shown "he's a compassionate man," Botsford said.

Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, who called the agents' convictions a "grotesque injustice," said he and other lawmakers initially had hoped to have the agents pardoned. "When it became evident there was resistance at the White House to a pardon, that's when we shifted gears to ask for a commutation," he said.

Culberson helped gather signatures from 31 of the 34 current members of the Texas congressional delegation and two former delegation members for a letter asking Bush for the commutations. Culberson hand-delivered the letter to the White House last week.

"I was beginning to really be concerned that with literally only hours left in the president's term, this might not happen," he said. "With this one decision, President Bush has done more to improve his popularity than any single thing he could do."
Compean and Ramos were convicted of shooting admitted drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete Davila in the buttocks as he fled across the Rio Grande, away from an abandoned van load of marijuana. He remains in a low-security prison in Fort Worth, Texas.

... what is left out of this story is that Mr. Davila, shot in the ass, was unarmed.

5 comments:

Davaudian said...

Yes, but some folks want to coddle these gangs and try to understand their plight. They want to give them a big hug and a nice car with a house and a job for $10 hr. They want to go opposite what's right because they see themselves as saints and almost Christlike. And then when they've found a few buddies that agree with them, they discuss ways to twist anything good in society. Thank God, our host isn't like that.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090119/wl_nm/us_mexico_drugs

barryshap said...

Who said anything about gangs? This time, anyway. As for your host being Christlike, you keep conjuring the Kinkster in my head. You know, "They ain't makin' Jews like Jesus anymore."

Davaudian said...

The tie went to the runner and that's the rules. This guy was a repeated mexican mafia runner. He was busted again, maybe twice.

barryshap said...

He was smuggling pot, for crying out loud! You know, the stuff that puts you to sleep? Gives you the munchies and watch endless television? The stuff that people get prescriptions for in California? Man, I've been trying to come up with a case of bursitis or something just to get some of that government weed. Can I tell you, I am a much better guitar player when I'm stoned. I think so, anyway. Not that I smoke, mind you, just in case there are any holdovers from Dubya's surveillance squad out there...

Davaudian said...

Never smoke and do gigs....you WILL think your great and then you get fired. The last thing you want is to be stoned while Vito has you by the collar.....not good. Play now, party later.