Thread: If a bullet can cross the border into Mexico, so can the Constitution

If a bullet can cross the border into Mexico, so can the Constitution


Mexican federal police and forensic experts stand next to the body of 14 year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez
Guereca, under the Paso Del Norte border bridge, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on June 7, 2010. (Associated Press)

Feb. 24, 2017

Lawyers for the government and a U.S. Border Patrol officer urged the Supreme Court this week to rule that the family of an unarmed Mexican teenager who was shot to death by the officer can’t seek damages in a U.S. court because the boy was on the Mexican side of the border.

The court must reject that argument. It can do so without making the provisions of the U.S. Constitution applicable to non-citizens worldwide, a scenario that seemed to worry some of the justices at oral argument in the case on Tuesday.

The facts of the case are horrifying. In June 2010, Sergio Hernandez, 15, was playing with three friends in the concrete culvert between El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico. At least some of the boys ran up the culvert and touched a fence on the U.S. side. They turned to run back to Mexican soil when Officer Jesus Mesa Jr. approached the area on a bicycle. Mesa fired three shots at Sergio, who was hiding behind a pillar on Mexican territory, and killed him.

U.S. officials declined to prosecute Mesa and refused to extradite him for prosecution in Mexico. Seeking at least some form of redress for what they saw as an unprovoked shooting, the boy’s family filed a civil damages suit in federal court, alleging violations of the 4th Amendment, which bans unreasonable seizures and the use of excessive force as well the 5th Amendment, which says no person shall "be deprived of life or liberty ... without due process of law."

Lawyers for the government and a U.S. Border Patrol officer urged the Supreme Court this week to rule that the family of an unarmed Mexican teenager who was shot to death by the officer can’t seek damages in a U.S. court because the boy was on the Mexican side of the border.

The court must reject that argument. It can do so without making the provisions of the U.S. Constitution applicable to non-citizens worldwide, a scenario that seemed to worry some of the justices at oral argument in the case on Tuesday.

The facts of the case are horrifying. In June 2010, Sergio Hernandez, 15, was playing with three friends in the concrete culvert between El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico. At least some of the boys ran up the culvert and touched a fence on the U.S. side. They turned to run back to Mexican soil when Officer Jesus Mesa Jr. approached the area on a bicycle. Mesa fired three shots at Sergio, who was hiding behind a pillar on Mexican territory, and killed him.

U.S. officials declined to prosecute Mesa and refused to extradite him for prosecution in Mexico. Seeking at least some form of redress for what they saw as an unprovoked shooting, the boy’s family filed a civil damages suit in federal court, alleging violations of the 4th Amendment, which bans unreasonable seizures and the use of excessive force as well the 5th Amendment, which says no person shall "be deprived of life or liberty ... without due process of law."

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/edito...224-story.html

No, you throw rocks across the border, you can expect a bullet back.

They say "don't take a knife to a gun fight."

Well, here's a new one, "don't take rocks to a gun fight."