US Attorney Sutton Misrepresents Circumstances of Ramos/Compean Case
Michael Cutler


"Justice delayed is justice denied." - William E. Gladstone, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, 1868 – 1894.

Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, a Mexican citizen who has been charged with conspiracy to distribute hundreds of pounds of marijuana in the United States between June 2005 and November 2005, has been arraigned on numerous smuggling charges in federal court in El Paso, Texas. What makes this seemingly routine matter anything but routine is that Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean are now serving up to 15 years in prison for having tried to arrest this man some time ago.

Agents Ramos and Compean were involved in an incident in which they fired a number of shots at this alleged smuggler after they attempted to stop him when he was found on the U.S. side of the Mexican border. Davila resisted arrest and then, according to the agents, spun around and pointed an object at them. They stated they believed he was holding a weapon and was about to shoot them. In short, they say they were acting in self defense. This is a reasonable concern; and it is my opinion that it’s entirely likely that Aldrete Davila was armed because, after the incident, the vehicle he was driving just before the encounter was found to have hundreds of pounds of marijuana concealed within it. In my many years of experience in dealing with drug traffickers, it is virtually unheard of that a drug trafficker or smuggler would be moving a significant load of illicit drugs or cash and not be armed to protect his cargo.

According to the account of the Border Patrol agents, they did not believe they had struck him with their bullets and, therefore, they did not file a written report of the incident to their superiors but believed that their boss who showed up minutes after the incident knew that shots had been fired. While it may well be that these two agents committed an administrative infraction where the failure to file a report is concerned, the incredible thing about this event is that they were charged with “using firearms in the commission of a crime.â€