Thread: BP Agents' Commutation under Review,US Pardon Attorney

Ramos, Compean Commutation under Review by U.S. Pardon Attorney

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) – In the waning days of the Bush administration, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is mulling whether to recommend a commutation for the two former Border Patrol agents jailed for more than a decade each for shooting a Mexican drug smuggler in the buttocks.

The case is now before the DOJ’s Pardon Attorney Donald Rodgers. The Office of Pardon Attorney works in consultation with the attorney general’s office to assist the president, who has sole power of clemency in federal cases under the Constitution.

Ultimately, it is the president’s call regardless of what the Office of Pardon Attorney recommends.

Last week, a federal judge in Texas left intact the 11-year sentence for Ignacio Ramos and 12-year sentence for Jose Compean in the shooting case of Mexican drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, who was later convicted on a separate drug smuggling crime.

The two former Border Patrol agents were convicted in early March 2006 for the discharge of a firearm in the commission of a violent crime, violation of civil rights, assault charges, and on charges of tampering with evidence.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last summer reversed the convictions for evidence tampering, but that did not affect the sentence, because the offense of discharging a weapon during a crime carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years. The two agents began serving their sentences in January 2007.

Both the House and Senate have held hearings investigating the prosecution of the agents, and numerous members of Congress have called on President George W. Bush to either pardon the two men or commute their sentences. Given the time served, attorneys are requesting commutation.

“I’m asking for a commutation, because he has already served the sentence on all counts of conviction except for the gun count,â€

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