Lawmakers ask Bush for Christmastime clemency for Ramos and Compean
By Eunice Moscoso | Thursday, December 20, 2007, 03:43 PM

A bipartisan group of lawmakers asked President Bush this week to commute the sentences of two former Border Patrol agents serving long sentences for shooting and wounding a Mexican drug dealer and trying to cover it up.

The lawmakers — Reps. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas (pictured), Ted Poe, R-Texas, Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., and William Delahunt, D-Mass. — asked Bush in a letter to act quickly so that the two men could spend Christmas home with their families.

The agents — Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos — are serving 12 and 11 years in prison, respectively. Their case has become a cause celebre among conservative websites, talk radio shows and groups that advocate tougher border controls. Supporters say that the agents were wrongly convicted for protecting the United States against criminal intruders.

The White House released a new list of presidential pardons and commutations last week which did not include two former Border Patrol agents.

In the letter, the lawmakers tell the president that the average sentence in cases of manslaughter in 2006 was less than four years and for assault, less than three years.

“Mr. President, in this light, it is clear that the sentences imposed on agents Ramos and Compean are profoundly disproportionate based on the totality of the circumstances and sentencing guidelines. Their sentences were, quite simply, a gross miscarriage of justice,â€