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July 19, 2007, 12:32AM
Cornyn urges clemency for 2 border agents


By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

Cornyn's letter WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and a Democratic colleague today urged President Bush to commute the sentences of two Border Patrol agents imprisoned for shooting a fleeing Mexican drug smuggler and concealing evidence.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Cornyn sent Bush a letter asking for clemency a day after a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where they criticized the federal prosecution of Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos as excessive.

"We believe that this is a case of prosecutorial overreaching, and to allow Agents Ramos and Compean to serve more than a decade in prison would represent a serious miscarriage of justice," they wrote.

"We urge you to commute their prison sentences immediately."

The White House, which has long refused to be drawn into talk of a pardon or commutation for Ramos and Compean, stuck to its guns Wednesday.

"We simply do not talk about applications or petitions or requests for pardon or commutation," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "It's just inappropriate to get into that."

Snow did say the president would read the senators' letter "with interest."

Texas' senior senator, Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, stopped short of echoing her colleagues' call for clemency.

"The jury verdict must be respected and the cover-up by the agents can't be excused," she said. "However, I share the concern that the sentence was excessive and believe the president should review it."

In their letter, Cornyn and Feinstein were studiously silent about Bush's recent commutation of former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 30-month prison sentence in the CIA leak investigation. Calling the sentence "excessive," Bush acted before Libby, a close ally of Vice President Dick Cheney, reported to prison.

Border enforcement hawks, who have championed a pardon for the ex-agents, were angered when Bush pardoned Libby but not Ramos and Compean, who have served six months of their respective 11- and 12-year prison sentences.

"As we now see, Scooter Libby can be set free," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif. "Two Border Patrol agents who would languish in solitary confinement, whose lives are in danger, their lives don't count a bit with this administration."

After a high-speed chase outside El Paso in February 2005, Ramos and Compean fired on smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete Davila after he abandoned a van containing 743 pounds of marijuana. Aldrete, shot in the buttocks, escaped on foot back into Mexico.

During an impassioned appearance before the Judiciary Committee, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of San Antonio sought to clear up what he called the "big lie" that Ramos and Compean were heroes persecuted by a government that instead sided with the drug trafficker.

"The reason all this mess happened is because ... Compean and Ramos shot an unarmed guy running away and covered it up," Sutton said. "If they hadn't had done that, they'd still be out on the line doing their job."

While Cornyn and Feinstein have been careful not to absolve the men of wrongdoing, they renewed their concern that prosecutors treated the smuggler far more generously than the two agents, granting him immunity from prosecution and giving him unfettered permission to enter the U.S.

Taking advantage of the entry privilege, Aldrete apparently smuggled another million-dollar marijuana load into the U.S. just months after the shooting, Cornyn said, citing a Drug Enforcement Administration report.

"It is incomprehensible to me that an illegal alien drug smuggler was allowed to violate his immunity agreement, perjure himself and be granted a series of unlimited visas to roam free in our country while two Border Patrol agents were given excessive prison sentences," Cornyn said.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4979752.html