Thread: State wants FBI to turn over documents in border shooting ca

State wants FBI to turn over documents in border shooting case
Associated Press
Jan. 15, 2008 04:40 PM

TUCSON - Lawyers prosecuting a Border Patrol agent charged with fatally shooting an illegal immigrant have asked a federal judge to compel the FBI to provide subpoenaed materials it refused to turn over.

The FBI conducted its own investigation into the January 2007 shooting of Francisco Javier Dominguez Rivera because of the possibility of civil rights violations.

Agent Nicholas W. Corbett faces trial Feb. 26 in U.S. District Court after Judge David C. Bury denied a defense motion to delay its start. Corbett, 40, has pleaded innocent to charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter and negligent homicide.

The Cochise County Sheriff's office conducted a criminal investigation of the shooting, and special prosecutors Grant Woods, a former Arizona attorney general, and Tyrone Mitchell were appointed to handle the case after lead prosecutor Gerald Till retired at year's end.

On Dec. 4, Mitchell and Woods sent a subpoena to the FBI seeking all evidence related to its investigation. An FBI agent contacted him about Dec. 27 to tell him that the agency "would be producing documents within the next two weeks," Mitchell's motion said.

But on Jan. 10, an FBI representative said that on the advice of counsel, "they would not be producing any materials for us to review," the motion said.

"The FBI has cooperated to the fullest extent possible within the confines of federal regulations and laws to include the Privacy Act," FBI spokesman Manuel Johnson in Phoenix said. "The U.S. Attorney's office will answer the motion to compel with a proper and accurate response."

Defense attorneys for Corbett have been seeking materials that could help prove his innocence since a motion filed Nov. 30, and at a hearing last month before Bury, Mitchell told the judge that the state was having difficulties in getting evidence, called discovery, from federal agencies in the case.

At that time, Bury told lawyers that they should file a motion to compel an order from the court if the difficulties continued.

In a filing Friday, Sean Chapman, Corbett's lead lawyer, said he did not object to Mitchell's motion to order the FBI to produce documents from the investigation. "The defense further requests that any documents disclosed by the FBI be provided to the defense," his response said.

"Even though full and fair disclosure by everybody in litigation serves justice well, there are some agencies and some agents that either try to preserve or create power for themselves by pursuing a policy of secrecy, even with their own prosecutors," said Walter Nash, a Tucson criminal attorney not associated with the Corbett case.

"It's probably fair to say that that is more prevalent in the federal system," which he described as more restrictive than the state system.

The shooting occurred east of Naco as Corbett tried to detain Dominguez Rivera, 22, of Puebla, Mexico, two brothers and the girlfriend of one. The four had entered the country illegally and were trying to return to the border to avoid capture when Corbett cut them off with his vehicle.

Corbett told a supervisor that he shot Dominguez Rivera after the man had threatened him with a rock. But the three people who were with the Dominguez Rivera told investigators that he was shot without provocation.

www.azcentral.com

But the three people who were with the Dominguez Rivera told investigators that he was shot without provocation

Yea right and we should definately believe what they have to say!