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Justice for two

By Mychal Massie
December 28, 2007

President Bush has disappointed his staunchest supporters no few times during his presidency, but nothing — not even his failed attempt to force a flawed immigration bill upon the nation — has been more disappointing than his refusal to pardon or commute the sentences of incarcerated border agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean.

On Dec. 11, 29 convicted criminals received presidential pardons. They included persons convicted of tax evasion and bank fraud, and drug smugglers and dealers and a moonshiner. However, while Mr. Bush was willing to extend the ultimate gift of the season to corrupt criminal elements, he stubbornly refuses to show the same forgiveness to Ramos and Compean. Unquestionably criminal elements are now free to enjoy Christmas with their families, while the two border agents languish in prison, separated from theirs.

Ramos and Compean are serving 11 and 12 years, respectively, after being convicted of assault, obstruction of justice and civil rights violations related to the wounding of Mexican drug-smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila. On Feb. 17, 2005, the agents chased Mr. Aldrete-Davila near the U.S.-Mexican border outside of El Paso, Texas, after Mr. Aldrete-Davila abandoned a van containing 743 pounds of marijuana with an estimated value of more than $1 million.

As the border agents attempted to apprehend Mr. Aldrete-Davila, he wrestled with Compean, ultimately escaping. As he fled, Mr. Aldrete-Davila produced and pointed an object that Ramos thought was a gun. Ramos fired at the fleeing Mr. Aldrete-Davila, but thought he had missed. In reality, Mr. Aldrete-Davila had been wounded in the buttocks, yet still managed to escape across the Rio Grande, where be met an accomplice who then drove him into Mexico.

Prosecutors claimed the agents had violated Border Patrol policy when they pursued Mr. Aldrete-Davila without supervisor approval, that Compean moved shell casings, and that both did not properly report the shots fired. Testifying against Ramos and Compean, under the veil of immunity from prosecution for his actions on the night in question, was none other than Mr. Aldrete-Davila himself.

T.J. Bonner of the National Border Patrol Council noted in Senate testimony that jurors were not told of Mr. Aldrete-Davila's continued drug trafficking after he was granted immunity (something for which he has since been indicted), nor that an agent who testified against Ramos and Compean is a life-long friend of Mr. Aldrete-Davila (a clear violation of agency policy). Mr. Bonner also testified that the shooting was justified by both Department of Justice and Border Patrol policies — and that a medical examination of Mr. Aldrete-Davila had supported the agents' description of events. Still, Ramos and Compean went to jail.

From the beginning of the agents' prosecution there has been a bitter public outcry, and wide-ranging, bipartisan congressional support for the border agents — all of which has fallen on deaf White House ears.

It can be argued that the agents may have dispensed their duties in a way that on some level inadvertently abrogated the strict letter of their proper protocol. It cannot be argued that they are being punished proportionately for the offense.

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