Thread: Respected U.S. prosecutor faces a conservative backlash

Posted on Mon, Mar. 26, 2007

Respected U.S. prosecutor faces a conservative backlash

By Dave Montgomery
McClatchy Newspapers


Dennis Drenner/MCT
Johnny Sutton's rigid adherence to an unwavering ethic: do the right thing and follow the facts, even when they lead to "unhappy places." The relatively low-profile federal prosecutor has been turned into a punching bag on conservative talk shows and Web sites, where he has been vilified for weeks for the prosecution of two Border Patrol agents now imprisoned for the shooting of a Mexican drug courier.




WASHINGTON - Throughout his rise from a rookie prosecutor's job in Houston to a position as a U.S. attorney pursuing criminals across much of Texas, Johnny Sutton said, he was bound by an unwavering ethic: Do the right thing and follow the facts, even when they lead to "unhappy places" such as errant public servants.


Sutton's adherence to that credo has transformed him from a relatively low-profile federal prosecutor to a punching bag on conservative talk shows and Web sites, where he's been vilified for weeks for prosecuting two Border Patrol agents who now are imprisoned for shooting a Mexican drug courier.


Another prosecution, involving a Texas sheriff's deputy who fired at a vehicle loaded with illegal immigrants, has heightened the outcry. T.J. Bonner, the head of the national Border Patrol agents' union, calls Sutton "public enemy No. 1." Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, a former Harris County judge who remembers Sutton as an able young prosecutor, now accuses him of choosing "the wrong side" in the border war.


In an hourlong interview at the Justice Department last week during a trip to Washington, Sutton defended the cases as what he called fact-based prosecutions of lawmen who abused their authority. He said he had no misgivings about prosecuting Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean and former Edwards County deputy Guillermo "Gilmer" Hernandez.


"Thanks to a few voices in the media, the narrative in the public is that these are two American heroes doing their job and they're going to prison while drug dealers are going free," he said of Ramos and Compean. "And, of course, if those were the facts, I'd be outraged as well. But those aren't the facts."


The assault by critics runs counter to the reputation Sutton forged during two decades in state and federal courtrooms, that of a straight-shooting legal tactician who appears equally respected by defense attorneys and fellow prosecutors.


Sutton left the Harris County District Attorney's Office in 1995 to become Gov. George W. Bush's criminal-justice policy director. After Bush won the 2000 presidential election, Sutton followed him to Washington as part of his transition team.


He remained there as an associate deputy under Attorney General John Ashcroft until October 2001, when Bush named him U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas. The district, one of the largest in the country, covers 93,000 square miles, 68 counties and three metropolitan areas: Austin, El Paso and San Antonio.


From his San Antonio base, Sutton, 46, helps shape Justice Department policy as the chairman of an advisory committee for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who's known Sutton since their days in the governor's office.


Sutton's post hasn't been reported as a potential target in what some charge was political ousters of several U.S. attorneys late last year. Conversely, Kyle Sampson, who resigned recently as Gonzales' chief of staff, said in an e-mail discussing "the replacement plan" that it was important to keep Sutton "in the loop" about potential changes because of his role as the advisory committee head.


The e-mail was among thousands that the House Judiciary Committee released last week. Sutton acknowledged that he was "given a heads up" about the changes but said he wasn't involved in the discussions. He said he couldn't discuss the case further because it was being dealt with at the top levels of the Justice Department.


While the criticism continues, Sutton's supporters back home - particularly within the legal arena - are rallying to his defense.


"He's getting a raw deal, and every one of these congressmen ought to be ashamed," said Rusty Hardin, a former Harris County prosecutor who's been a high-profile Houston trial lawyer since 1990. "No prosecutor worth his salt would have done anything different than Johnny did."


Sutton started out as an intern at the Harris County District Attorney's Office and later joined the office full time, eventually becoming one of 22 chief prosecutors handling capital murder cases and other major felonies. One of his most sensational cases was prosecuting gang members who'd raped and killed two teenage girls who'd stumbled into a gang initiation on their way home from a party.


Sutton oversees 260 employees, including 118 assistant U.S. attorneys, whose cases range from urban white-collar crime to drug smuggling and illegal immigration in a district that includes 660 miles of U.S.-Mexico border. The district's 1,729 drug cases involving 2,615 defendants led the nation in 2006.


Sutton generally stayed below the radar outside his district until the backlash over Ramos and Compean, each of whom was sentenced to at least a decade in prison for shooting Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila after he abandoned a van loaded with marijuana and ran back toward Mexico.


"He has done more to demoralize the Border Patrol than any one person in the history of the United States, in our view," said Bonner, the president of the National Border Patrol Council.


The two agents said they thought Aldrete-Davila had a gun, but the jury found that they'd fired at an unarmed man 15 times, hitting him once in the buttocks, then had tried to cover up the shooting. The backlash has prompted Sutton, in a move unusual for federal attorneys, to post a defense of the prosecution on his office's Web site.


Sutton said he sympathized with law enforcement officers, who had dangerous jobs. But, he said, "We don't allow police officers or federal agents to become judge, jury and executioner."



http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16976456.htm

There is NOBODY rallying to this pigs defense! NOBODY!!

(Not after this sex abuse case goes national...hehehe)

Johnny Sutton is a seditionist, a traitor
and scum.






Neils
6:40 pm
03/26/2007
*
He can fancy dance around it all he wants.

All he is .... is a bag man for the boys down town.

Screw him.



Neils
6:41 pm
03/26/2007

Hero my arse, anyone who would refuse to prosecute "pigs" who abused their power, used it to rape and molest young boy's in juvenile facilities across TX, instead he chooses to prosecute officers trying to do their job, give me a break here, he should be fired might help though!

Americans aren't going to stand behind this traitor.

Maybe he should change his name to Benedict Sutton and move south of the border.

From his San Antonio base, Sutton, 46, helps shape Justice Department policy as the chairman of an advisory committee for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who's known Sutton since their days in the governor's office.

What PALS. Sutton and Gonzales are like 2 peas in a pod. They are both going to lose all the respect they didn't deserve in the 1st place.

Sutton is no doubt a traiterous scumbag, but I will say this for him, he is working under direct orders from the White House.

Everything about this travesty is coordinated on Pennsylvania ave, Washington D.C. and I revel in all of the problems they are having now with a 2 party system.....I just wish the people we put in their had a bit more of a backbone. They are too afraid to go beyond making noise.

Impeach, Impeach, Impeach

(only bad part is we'd be stuck with Darth Cheyney)

We need a new political party or 3 in America.
A worker party, a viable independent party, etc.... the ones we are stuck with are 2 sides of the same coin. We should have term limits, and no lifetime benefits for politicos, and 'firing' powers to vote any and all of them out at anytime...kinda like England has a vote of no confidence, get that and your done, bye, bye.

Mr Montgomery fails to mention Guillermo Hernandez was cleared
by the Texas Rangers of any wrongdoing & was convicted of
violating the civil rights of the illegal alien which probably means
no real criminal charges were possible. Must have a chilling effect
on immigration law enforcement in Texas, which is probably what
Gonzales wants.

What I would like to know is where do they find the juries that find these men guilty of the crime in the first place?