"A handful of lawmakers".....

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Lawmakers want leniency for 2 jailed Border Patrol agents
By SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press
Nov. 20, 2008, 6:59PM

WASHINGTON — A handful of lawmakers want President George W. Bush to commute the sentences of two Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a now-convicted drug smuggler and covering it up.

The House members said Thursday that Bush should commute the sentence of the two men before he leaves office to show his concern for law enforcement officers and the danger of their jobs. They asked the Justice Department to recommend the agents' cases to Bush.

As Bush's presidency ends a close watch is being kept on who will get pardons or clemency, including whether he'll issue pardons to anyone who authorized or engaged in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists. The lawmakers pushing for the pardon attorney to at least commute the sentence of the Border Patrol agents or possibly pardon them say his action on their plea will be a barometer for other pardons.

Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean were sentenced to 11 years and 12 years, respectively, after being convicted in 2006 of shooting now-convicted drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete Davila of Mexico and trying to cover up the incident.

A federal judge in El Paso re-sentenced the two this month to the same jail terms after an appeals court threw out one of the charges against each of them, who have been in prison for two years.

"If you can't do it for Ramos and Compean, how can you do it for anyone on that list?" said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.

Ramos has applied to the Justice Department's pardon attorney for clemency, said Laura Sweeney, a DOJ spokeswoman. The request is pending.

Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, said lawmakers will pressure President-elect Barack Obama to show leniency to the agents if Bush does not.

Other lawmakers who had signed a letter to the Justice Department's pardon attorney by Thursday morning are Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass. and Republican Reps. Ted Poe of Texas, Dana Rohrabacher, Howard McKeon and Ed Royce of California and Walter Jones and Sue Myrick of North Carolina.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6123780.html