Finally: Bush Commutes 2 Border Agents’ Sentences

RedwolfWV

RedwolfWV

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Full Story Here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/washington/20sentence.html?hp



By DAVID STOUT
Published: January 19, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday commuted the sentences of two former border patrol agents who had been sentenced to more than a decade in prison for shooting and seriously wounding a Mexican drug dealer in Texas in 2005.

With a day left in his presidency, Mr. Bush exercised his constitutional power to grant clemency — for the last time, according to a senior White House official — in a case that has touched off fierce debate in the Southwest. The two former agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, had attracted considerable support among advocates of tougher border security, who argued that the agents were just doing their jobs.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” the lead prosecutor in the case said in 2007, scoffing at the idea that the defendants were defending themselves. The agents said at trial that they had scuffled with the dealer, Osvaldo Aldrete Davila.

“These agents shot someone whom they knew to be unarmed and running away,” said the prosecutor, United States Attorney Johnny Sutton. “They destroyed evidence, covered up a crime scene and then filed false reports about what happened. It is shocking that there are people who believe it is O.K. for agents to shoot an unarmed suspect who is running away.”

The incident touched off heated debate about law enforcement and illegal immigration. A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 2007 brought out the fact that Mr. Aldrete-Davila had crossed the United States-Mexican border illegally and driving a van containing 743 pounds of marijuana worth almost $1 million.
 
dsade

dsade

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About freaking time.

Glad he could take time out of his busy schedule to finally do this.
 
RedwolfWV

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Yea, I don't think these guys should have even spent a day in jail. The Boarder Patrol is so hard up for recruits now that here in West Virginia, I have a stack of applications sitting on my desk in the state office building. Nobody wants the job anymore, and they are very short handed.
 
dsade

dsade

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Yea, I don't think these guys should have even spent a day in jail. The Boarder Patrol is so hard up for recruits now that here in West Virginia, I have a stack of applications sitting on my desk in the state office building. Nobody wants the job anymore, and they are very short handed.
I consider Border Patrol the equivalent of signing up to be a Grunt in Vietnam...why would anyone want a job that puts their life and freedom at risk, that seems to have ZERO serious support from the government?
 
RedwolfWV

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I agree completely. What I should have said was they left the stack on my desk, knowing this is a low income area, hoping to find people desparate enough to apply for the job. The boss is gonna round-file them. They aren't supposed to be putting that stuff in our area anyway but its convieniant because most people who come in stop by the security desk to ask directions, etc.
 

AE14

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all I will say, is thats its about time
 

saludable24

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It's great he commuted the sentance, but kinda sucks that it is not a full pardon. The conviction will stay on their record permanently because they did their job. The government railroaded those two for political purposes. Hopefully the supreme court will grow a pair, hear their case and right the wrong overturning the conviction completely.
 
RobInKuwait

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It's great he commuted the sentance, but kinda sucks that it is not a full pardon. The conviction will stay on their record permanently because they did their job. The government railroaded those two for political purposes. Hopefully the supreme court will grow a pair, hear their case and right the wrong overturning the conviction completely.
all I will say, is thats its about time
Well said. Poor guys.
 
badfish21981

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Man I am glad that these guys are free. To bad they got screwed for doing their jobs.
 

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