Thread: FOXNEWS: Bush would consider pardon

Originally Posted by PinestrawGuys

Crocket,

I appreciate the rational way that you present your arguments and find myself agreeing with you most of the time.

However, I have a problem with the conviction of these agents, based upon the sworn statements of 3 jurors who claim to have been coerced into the unanimous verdict by the jury foreman. On this alone I believe that the agents in question deserve a new trial, preferably one in which ALL the evidence is allowed to be heard.

My 2 cents...

If jurors voted for a conviction against their beliefs, then they are part of the problem. I have been on many juries and I can tell you that a jury foreman does not have that sort of power. Not only that, if the jury foreman makes inappropriate threats or uses coercion, it is encumbent upon the other jurors to file a complaint with the judge immediately. You can't make an unpopular vote for conviction and then try to weasel out of it later by blaming someone else. That's ludicrous.

Originally Posted by Neese

Originally Posted by CrocketsGhost

Originally Posted by Neese

I know that I am going to be in the minority here, and you all will think that I am crazy, but no, I don't think it is a bad precedent. Our country is already turning into the wild west, and the good guys are losing. By making an example out of a couple of Border Patrol agents, as they have to the Minutemen, only makes me more angry. I am almost willing to bet that these two men will serve more jail time than many of our rapist, drug dealers and illegals. I know what you are saying, but I don't agree with that anymore. It is already a free for all, especially on the border. We would rather see a little old lady rot in her apartment freezing from the cold, without food, and too fearful to step foot outside of her home, than to execute known criminals who are keeping her there. That, my friend, is a sad day. Let's start helping the people that make this country great, and stop protecting the dregs of humanity.

Okay, so let me get this straight. People here are ripping George W. Bush left and right, accusing him of conspiring against the People and even of being a foreign mole, but YOU think it would be a good idea if he were to routinely pardon the misdeeds of his own operatives in the event that they are made to face justice and are duly convicted. Is that right?

Wow. Is there no rational middle ground here any more?

My allegiance is to the safety of our nation. I am not saying that I would take matters into my own hands, but if someone else does, and it is against someone with a criminal record, I am not going to protest their actions. I don't think that there is a conspiracy, and I don't think that the President is a mole. I would, however, like some form of explanation for the decisions being made concerning the border. We know that tax paying citizens who live on the border are being kidnapped, threatened, not only by drug cartels but the Mexican military as well. We know that Laredo is a war zone and that there is a price on our BP's heads. The National Guard has been threatend, and we know that parents have to carry a gun with them when they walk their children to the bus stop. Our government is completely aware of what is happening, I know this because I write them all of the time inviting them to bring their loved ones for a nice family vacation in the war zone. So far, no one has taken me up on it, I can't imagine why. By profession, you have to have a certain mindset, luckily I don't need to. Do any of these things resinate? Is that the United States that you want for your children?

Neese, that response in no way addresses the point that I was making, so I will try again. Do you feel, generically speaking, that it is appropriate for a elected official to be able to circumvent the justice system when applied to the agents who work for him by pardoning them? Do you not feel that allowing, much less encouraging, the Executive Branch to be able to free its agents who have been convicted by a duly convened jury in a duly convened trial is a good way to encourage future tyranny?

I'll take this logical exercise a step further. When I hear people clamouring for a given power for an official they support, I try to turn the argument around and ask how they would feel if that same power was being exercised by their least favorite politician. For example, I ask those who support Bush and his War on Terror if they would be comfortable having Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office and free to circumvent due process via the Patriot Act. So, Neese, think about the most despicable person you can imagine occupying the Oval Office. Think about all the potential abuses of power by federal agents operating under the direction of that person. Then think about having a standard policy whereby any of those agents brought to trial and convicted of abuses could be summarily pardoned by their boss. Is that something that you want? It sure as Hell is not something that I want, and I think that the Founding Fathers would turn in their graves at such a thought.

Originally Posted by CrocketsGhost

Originally Posted by PinestrawGuys

Crocket,

I appreciate the rational way that you present your arguments and find myself agreeing with you most of the time.

However, I have a problem with the conviction of these agents, based upon the sworn statements of 3 jurors who claim to have been coerced into the unanimous verdict by the jury foreman. On this alone I believe that the agents in question deserve a new trial, preferably one in which ALL the evidence is allowed to be heard.

My 2 cents...

If jurors voted for a conviction against their beliefs, then they are part of the problem. I have been on many juries and I can tell you that a jury foreman does not have that sort of power. Not only that, if the jury foreman makes inappropriate threats or uses coercion, it is encumbent upon the other jurors to file a complaint with the judge immediately. You can't make an unpopular vote for conviction and then try to weasel out of it later by blaming someone else. That's ludicrous.

Having never served on a jury myself I can't claim any expertise, but it seems to me that if these 3 feel that they were coerced, a new trial should be ordered, the theory being that "It's better that 10 guilty go free than 1 innocent be convicted." That's an obvious paraphrase, but you get my gist, I'm sure.

I am under the impression that the 3 jurors came forward within days of the trials end. If this is not the case, I would be more inclined to agree with you.

I do think that they should be allowed to remain free pending appeal.

Originally Posted by PinestrawGuys

Originally Posted by CrocketsGhost

Originally Posted by PinestrawGuys

Crocket,

I appreciate the rational way that you present your arguments and find myself agreeing with you most of the time.

However, I have a problem with the conviction of these agents, based upon the sworn statements of 3 jurors who claim to have been coerced into the unanimous verdict by the jury foreman. On this alone I believe that the agents in question deserve a new trial, preferably one in which ALL the evidence is allowed to be heard.

My 2 cents...

If jurors voted for a conviction against their beliefs, then they are part of the problem. I have been on many juries and I can tell you that a jury foreman does not have that sort of power. Not only that, if the jury foreman makes inappropriate threats or uses coercion, it is encumbent upon the other jurors to file a complaint with the judge immediately. You can't make an unpopular vote for conviction and then try to weasel out of it later by blaming someone else. That's ludicrous.

Having never served on a jury myself I can't claim any expertise, but it seems to me that if these 3 feel that they were coerced, a new trial should be ordered, the theory being that "It's better that 10 guilty go free than 1 innocent be convicted." That's an obvious paraphrase, but you get my gist, I'm sure.

I am under the impression that the 3 jurors came forward within days of the trials end. If this is not the case, I would be more inclined to agree with you.

I do think that they should be allowed to remain free pending appeal.

If they came forward after the trial's end, then they came forward too late and did so in the wrong forum. Any time there is any jury misconduct it is supposed to be immediately reported to the judge presiding over the case. That obligation is spelled out in the charge to the jury before deliberation begins.

If it would not be too much trouble, could I ask you to locate and post (or send to me via PM) your source for the claim that jurors claimed intimidation. I would like to be able to review that claim and the context in which it was made. I have seen the claim vaguely alluded to in various of the missives from supports of the agents, but I have not seen the source for the claim. I'll do some digging as well and report anything definitive that I can find, unless of course you have already done so by that time.

Crocket wrote:

I understand the natural prejudice in favor of border enforcement agents over illegal aliens. However, EVERYONE should be accountable for his actions, and that goes double for those entrusted with the power of deadly force. It sucks royally that the damned drug trafficker not only gets off scot free, but gets a payday out of it as well, but a good bit of the blame for that rests with the agents.

I have said an will continue to say that I find it objectionable that the White House is villified because it did not immediately leap to the defense of a pair of agents duly convicted of a crime. I don't know about you, but I find terrifying the idea that government would cover up for the misdeeds of agents duly convicted of crimes, and I think that it is especially egregious when the branch of government under which an official serves attempts to pardon its own. There are some very fundamental issues of governance at stake here, and I don't think that we should abandon them just because we have a kneejerk reaction to a given case.

It seems to me that in the rush to defend agents and lash out at an illegal alien drug peddler who got to mock justice, we are throwing prudence out the window.

Crocket, methinks thou dost protest too much. 99% of your argument rests on the assumption that the conviction of the two border guards proves their guilt, and that the sentences they received were entirely justified. In another time, another place that might be a reasonable assumption. But this is the country and the jurisprudence system that produced the OJ Simpson acquittal. This is the country that produces jurors who come from an electrorate that re-elects people to Congress who have been caught red handed with bribe money in a sting operation. This is a country where judges release known child molestors on minimum bail bonds. So please, don't get holier than thou with the fundamental issues of governance. Keep the following in mind:

a. The conviction of the two border guards rests primarily on the testimony of a known drug smuggler . It was his word against theirs. Did the judge ever explain to the jury what reasonable doubt is?
b. The border guards claimed they thought the smuggler had a weapon and that he was trying to use it. The smuggler said he was unarmed. Since considerable time expired after the incident before charging the border guards, there is no way to prove either story. However, there is no question the smuggler is a smuggler. Now, how did he expect to protect his goods from other smugglers, etc. if he was not armed?
c. The statement by the doctor who treated the smuggler for the gunshot wound describes the wound as being in the groin area, and could have been received if the smuggler were running away, and then turned partially towards the border guards ( as if to fire a weapon, perhaps?)
d. Even if everything the prosecution claimed was true, and it appears that is doubtul, 11 to 12 years for the offense is outrageous. Probation, 1 or 2 years, dismissal, fines .....any of these options would appear more appropriate.
e. A Pardon is not an acquittal. A pardon is granted by the President (or state governors for state crimes) based on many factors such as extenuating circumstances, previous record of the individual(s), belief that the sentence was inappropriately harsh, etc. Sometimes in a belief that justice and the society will be better served with the individual(s) out of jail rather than in jail.
f. As for branches of government pardoning its own, remember that Ford pardoned Nixon.

There is an odor about this whole case, and it reeks of setup. Bush wants an open border. Mexico complains everytime we exert our sovereignty. Bush wants Mexico to keep its oil industry privatized (vs. nationalization as Chavez has done in Venezuela, and leaders have done in other South American countries). Bang. Opportunity presents itself. Two border guards shoot a Mexican national smuggling drugs on US soil. There are doubts as to the propriety of the agents' actions. Let's make an example of them so other members of agencies entrusted with protecting our borders will not be so zealous in the future. Of course, this means Homeland Security must journey to Mexico to make a deal with a known drug smuggler, who just happens to have a buddy who is a border patrolman also (is anyone investigating that guy?). And part of the deal is immunity. And medical attention. And US citizenship (is that really true? my spouse said so, incredible as it seems). And the US judicial system nails these two border patrolmen hard. Mexico is happy. Bush is happy. The Bush-appointed US attorney who prosecuted the case is happy.

And the oil companies are happy because Mexico has not nationalized its oil production. Yet.

This trial was not about the crime of the drug dealer. The possibiliy of trying him went out the window when the officers failed to arrest him or even provide a description of him. They blew that case.

Maybe no fair, but I think we have to bring up that Davila was arrested again in October following this incident. He was dead to rights with 1000 pounds of marijuana. Sutton extended immunity to the drug dealer once again.

This article doesn't go into the jurors claims, but it does get into alot of the things that I find dubious.

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_4141562


Here's something from the jurors...

Claudia and another juror, Bob Gourley, who teaches special-needs students, said the guidelines provided to the jury were at times difficult to understand and that several of the guidelines regarding the convictions were open to interpretation.

Both added that several of the jurors, including the foreman, pressured colleagues to go with a guilty verdict because spring break was a week away and they didn't want to be stuck in a long deliberation. Gourley said the foreman told the jurors, several of whom were holding out, that Judge Cardone would not accept a hung jury.

The foreman, whose name is being withheld, could not be reached for comment.

http://www.dailybulletin.com/portal/new ... loopback=1

I'll see what else I can find in a bit. I've got to cook for the tribe now.

Originally Posted by 4thHorseman

Crocket wrote:

I understand the natural prejudice in favor of border enforcement agents over illegal aliens. However, EVERYONE should be accountable for his actions, and that goes double for those entrusted with the power of deadly force. It sucks royally that the damned drug trafficker not only gets off scot free, but gets a payday out of it as well, but a good bit of the blame for that rests with the agents.

I have said an will continue to say that I find it objectionable that the White House is villified because it did not immediately leap to the defense of a pair of agents duly convicted of a crime. I don't know about you, but I find terrifying the idea that government would cover up for the misdeeds of agents duly convicted of crimes, and I think that it is especially egregious when the branch of government under which an official serves attempts to pardon its own. There are some very fundamental issues of governance at stake here, and I don't think that we should abandon them just because we have a kneejerk reaction to a given case.

It seems to me that in the rush to defend agents and lash out at an illegal alien drug peddler who got to mock justice, we are throwing prudence out the window.

Crocket, methinks thou dost protest too much. 99% of your argument rests on the assumption that the conviction of the two border guards proves their guilt, and that the sentences they received were entirely justified.

Not at all. Where you get the "99%" BS is completely beyond me, but I have explained this elsewhere. It's not a matter of proof, but rather a matter of reasonable doubt or lack thereof, and then of burden of proof. Up to the point of conviction, the burden of proof was on the prosecution and the benefit of the doubt goes to the accused. After conviction, the burden of proof changes. That's what due process is all about, and it's what keeps the legal system from getting bogged down by convicts who, after being duly convicted, could abuse the system to avoid justice. There are many safeguards that go into our system of justice. It's nowhere near 100% flawless, but it's what we have. We either live with it or we go back to the Wild West where might makes right or where a loud enough group of advocates can overturn the justice process. That's Third World nonsense and not befitting a modern republic of laws.

Originally Posted by 4thHorseman

In another time, another place that might be a reasonable assumption. But this is the country and the jurisprudence system that produced the OJ Simpson acquittal. This is the country that produces jurors who come from an electrorate that re-elects people to Congress who have been caught red handed with bribe money in a sting operation. This is a country where judges release known child molestors on minimum bail bonds.

That's ridiculous. We either have a sytem of justice or we have anarchy. Inevitably we see these sorts of arguments when someone doesn't like the outcome of a given trial or two. The funny thing is that people like yourself never have an answer as to what superior system of justice is supposed to take its place. As best I can tell, you are advocating for mob rule. Nice.

Originally Posted by 4thHorseman

So please, don't get holier than thou with the fundamental issues of governance.

Holier than thou? I am simply expalining the things that some of you apparently didn't bother to learn in civics class. How can I be "holier than thou" when, first of all, I have no dog in this hunt one way or another and, second of all, I am simply recounting the law and the justice system generically as it applies?

Originally Posted by 4thHorseman

Keep the following in mind:

a. The conviction of the two border guards rests primarily on the testimony of a known drug smuggler . It was his word against theirs. Did the judge ever explain to the jury what reasonable doubt is?

That's false. The conviction relied on testimony of the smuggler, of the other agents present, and of the two agents themselves, who admitted that the man had tried to surrender.

Originally Posted by 4thHorseman

b. The border guards claimed they thought the smuggler had a weapon and that he was trying to use it. The smuggler said he was unarmed. Since considerable time expired after the incident before charging the border guards, there is no way to prove either story. However, there is no question the smuggler is a smuggler. Now, how did he expect to protect his goods from other smugglers, etc. if he was not armed?

You are mistaken. The agents did claim that they thought that he was armed, but no evidence indicated that he was armed. The fact that he had raised two open palms when he tried to surrender, as testified by the agents themselves, was what cast doubt upon the claim that they thought he was armed.

Originally Posted by 4thHorseman

c. The statement by the doctor who treated the smuggler for the gunshot wound describes the wound as being in the groin area, and could have been received if the smuggler were running away, and then turned partially towards the border guards ( as if to fire a weapon, perhaps?)

This statement is completely conjectural, the last comment being without any evidenciary support.

Originally Posted by 4thHorseman

d. Even if everything the prosecution claimed was true, and it appears that is doubtul, 11 to 12 years for the offense is outrageous. Probation, 1 or 2 years, dismissal, fines .....any of these options would appear more appropriate.

I agree. But you are aware, I'm sure, that there was no discretion with respect to the sentence. It was a mandatory sentence imposed by the legislature, which is why I oppose mandatory sentencing.

Originally Posted by 4thHorseman

e. A Pardon is not an acquittal. A pardon is granted by the President (or state governors for state crimes) based on many factors such as extenuating circumstances, previous record of the individual(s), belief that the sentence was inappropriately harsh, etc. Sometimes in a belief that justice and the society will be better served with the individual(s) out of jail rather than in jail.

What on Earth would lead you to believe that I have confused pardon and acquittal? What I have repeatedly stated is that any potential pardon should be carefully considered because of the fact that these two agents work for the Executive Branch, and so such pardons tread dangerously close to unacceptable confilct of interest and set a dangerous precedent. I would personally have little problem with these officers being pardoned as a matter of justice. The injury to the suspect was minimal, and the greater crime was that their actions made it impossible to prsecute the guy for drug smuggling. My only issue with the pardon is the concept of conflict of interest. If there was some way to make sure that a pardon in this case did not set a precedent, I'd have little problem with it.

Originally Posted by 4thHorseman

f. As for branches of government pardoning its own, remember that Ford pardoned Nixon.

Exactly. That was a permanent black spot on the history of the Presidency. Do you want to see it repeated, or do you share my opinion that it was wrong?

Originally Posted by 4thHorseman

There is an odor about this whole case, and it reeks of setup.

Thanks for your opinion. I'll take it under advisement and grant it its due weight.

Originally Posted by 4thHorseman

Bush wants an open border.

Here's where we get back to hyperbole. The fact is that you may opine as to what Bush wants, but you actually have no special insight whatsoever into his mind. I have provided other plausible reasons that the unchecked immigration is being allowed to continue, but I don't know the real answer any more than you do.

Originally Posted by 4thHorseman

Mexico complains everytime we exert our sovereignty. Bush wants Mexico to keep its oil industry privatized (vs. nationalization as Chavez has done in Venezuela, and leaders have done in other South American countries). Bang. Opportunity presents itself. Two border guards shoot a Mexican national smuggling drugs on US soil. There are doubts as to the propriety of the agents' actions. Let's make an example of them so other members of agencies entrusted with protecting our borders will not be so zealous in the future. Of course, this means Homeland Security must journey to Mexico to make a deal with a known drug smuggler, who just happens to have a buddy who is a border patrolman also (is anyone investigating that guy?). And part of the deal is immunity. And medical attention. And US citizenship (is that really true? my spouse said so, incredible as it seems). And the US judicial system nails these two border patrolmen hard. Mexico is happy. Bush is happy. The Bush-appointed US attorney who prosecuted the case is happy.

And the oil companies are happy because Mexico has not nationalized its oil production. Yet.

Okay, so you are admitting that this is not about the case. This is about a convenient chance to take out your frustration for a whole host of other issues. That's as understandable as it is unacceptable in a nation of law.

I know this has nothing to do with Compean and Ramos directly but it shows the level the gov. is on . This came from the link Sherri Correll provided to the National Border Patrol Council last night .I hope she has other links for this was a good one.The BP agent that contacted Homeland Security to report Compean and Ramos needs to be looked at quite closely ,

The House of Death

When 12 bodies were found buried in the garden of a Mexican house, it seemed like a case of drug-linked killings. But the trail led to Washington and a cover-up that went right to the top.

By David Rose
Reporting from El Paso

12/03/06 "The Observer" -- -- El Paso -- Janet Padilla's first inkling that something might be wrong came when she phoned her husband at lunchtime. His mobile phone was switched off. On 14 January, 2004, Luis had, as usual, left for work at 6am, and when he did not answer the first call Janet made, after taking the children to school, she assumed he was busy. Two weeks later she would learn the truth.

'It was love at first sight for Luis and me, and that's how it stayed, after two years dating at school and eight years of marriage,' says Janet. 'We always spoke a couple of times during the day and he always kept his phone on. So I called my dad, who owns the truckyard where he worked and he told me, "he hasn't been here". I called my in-laws and they hadn't seen him either, and they were already worried because his car was outside their house with the windows open and the keys in the ignition. He would never normally leave it like that.'

Luis Padilla, 29, father of three, had been kidnapped, driven across the Mexican border from El Paso, Texas, to a house in Ciudad Juarez, the lawless city ruled by drug lords that lies across the Rio Grande. As his wife tried frantically to locate him, he was being stripped, tortured and buried in a mass grave in the garden - what the people of Juarez call a narco-fossa, a narco-smugglers' tomb.

Just another casualty of Mexico's drug wars? Perhaps. But Padilla had no connection with the drugs trade; he seems to have been the victim of a case of mistaken identity. Now, as a result of documents disclosed in three separate court cases, it is becoming clear that his murder, along with at least 11 further brutal killings, at the Juarez 'House of Death', is part of a gruesome scandal, a web of connivance and cover-up stretching from the wild Texas borderland to top Washington officials close to President Bush.

These documents, which form a dossier several inches thick, are the main source for the facts in this article. They suggest that while the eyes of the world have been largely averted, America's 'war on drugs' has moved to a new phase of cynicism and amorality, in which the loss of human life has lost all importance - especially if the victims are Hispanic. The US agencies and officials in this saga - all of which refused to comment, citing pending lawsuits - appear to have thought it more important to get information about drugs trafficking than to stop its perpetrators killing people.

The US media have virtually ignored this story. The Observer is the first newspaper to have spoken to Janet Padilla, and this is the first narrative account to appear in print. The story turns on one extraordinary fact: playing a central role in the House of Death was a US government informant, Guillermo Ramirez Peyro, known as Lalo, who was paid more than $220,000 (£110,000) by US law enforcement bodies to work as a spy inside the Juarez cartel. In August 2003 Lalo bought the quicklime used to dissolve the flesh of the first victim, Mexican lawyer Fernando Reyes, and then helped to kill him; he recorded the murder secretly with a bug supplied by his handlers - agents from the Immigration and Customs Executive (Ice), part of the Department of Homeland Security. That first killing threw the Ice staff in El Paso into a panic. Their informant had helped to commit first-degree murder, and they feared they would have to end his contract and abort the operations for which he was being used. But the Department of Justice told them to proceed.

Lalo's cartel bosses told him whenever they were planning another killing, using a grisly codeword - carne asada, 'barbecue'. In the six months after Reyes's death, they used it on many occasions. Each time, says Lalo, he informed his handlers in Ice. They did not intervene.

El Paso, population 700,000, lies in Texas's far west. It is a V-shaped city almost bisected by the Franklin mountains, lashed by desert winds. Houston and Dallas are more than 600 miles away. Much closer, across a guarded fence and the river, here little wider than a stream, is Juarez. On the western side of the Mexican city are the barrios - dirt streets of ramshackle huts without sanitation, built from discarded wood and tyres, whose inhabitants live in sight of the gleaming offices of downtown El Paso.

Eastern Juarez is very different. There, in the campestre, the country club district, lie gated developments patrolled by security guards, armoured palaces of marble, with columns, fountains and huge golden domes. Most of the money comes from drugs. Los narcos control not only Juarez but the wider state of Chihuahua, ruling through corruption and fear. One organisation is paramount - the Juarez cartel led by Vicente Carrillo Fuentes. The US State Department claims he is responsible for shipping cocaine and marijuana worth billions of dollars a year and protects his business by killing. America is offering a $5m reward for his arrest.

His cartel has penetrated Mexican law enforcement at all levels. Like many of its operatives, Lalo began as a policeman - in his case in the Mexican highway police. Having resigned from the force in 1995, he began transporting cocaine by the ton for a gang based in Guadalajara. Professing disgust at his criminal associates, he started working for the US government in February 2000, supplying information not only to Ice (then known as US Customs) but also the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco, and the FBI. A few months later, with his handlers' encouragement, he was recruited into the Juarez cartel by Il Ingeniero, the Engineer, one of Fuentes's key lieutenants and a man notorious for acts of savage violence. His real name was Heriberto Santillan-Tabares.

'The money I got from the Americans I invested in business,' says Lalo, 36. 'I had a used-car lot, a furniture store and a cellphone accessory place.' He settled with his wife and three children on the US side of the border. 'I spoke to my handlers three or four times a day. But when I went across the bridge to Juarez, I had no back-up. I was on my own.'

Lalo claims to have facilitated numerous drug seizures and arrests. But on 28 June, 2003, his loyalty came under suspicion when he was arrested by the DEA in New Mexico, driving a truck he had brought across the border containing 102lb of marijuana. He had not told his handlers about this shipment and, in accordance with its normal procedures, the DEA 'deactivated' him as a source.

Ice took a different view. Agents in its El Paso office were trying to use Lalo to build a case against Santillan, and to nail a separate cigarette-smuggling investigation. At a meeting with federal prosecutors the week after Lalo's arrest, Ice tried to persuade assistant US attorney Juanita Fielden that, if Lalo were closely monitored, he would continue to be effective. Fielden agreed. She says in an affidavit that she called the New Mexico prosecutor and got him to drop the charges. Lalo was released.

A month later, on 5 August, Santillan asked Lalo to meet him at a cartel safe house at 3633 Calle Parsonieros, in an affluent neighbourhood of Juarez. The Mexican lawyer Reyes would be there too, Santillan said, and with the help of some members of the Juarez judicial police - the local detective force - they were going to kill him.

When Lalo arrived, two cops were already there. He went out to buy the quicklime and duct tape, and when he returned Santillan turned up with Reyes. The policemen jumped on the lawyer, beating him and trying to put duct tape over his mouth. Lalo, wearing his hidden wire supplied by Ice, recorded Reyes's desperate pleas for mercy. 'They [the police] asked me to help them get him to the floor,' reads a statement he made later. 'They tried to choke him with an extension cord, but this broke and I gave them a plastic bag and they put it on his head and suffocated him.' Even then, they were not sure Reyes was dead. One of the officers took a shovel 'and hit him many times on the head'.

When Lalo returned to El Paso on the day of Reyes's murder and told his Ice employers what had happened they were understandably worried. They knew that, if they were to continue using Lalo as an informant, they would need high-level authorisation. That afternoon and evening he was debriefed at length by his main handler, Special Agent Raul Bencomo, and his supervisor. Then he was allowed to go back to Juarez - Santillan had given him $2,000 to pay two cartel members to dig Reyes's grave, cover his body with quicklime and bury it.

Meanwhile the El Paso Ice office reported the matter to headquarters in Washington. The information went up the chain of command, eventually reaching America's Deputy Assistant Attorney General, John G. Malcolm. It passed through the office of Johnny Sutton, the US Attorney for Western Texas - a close associate of George W. Bush. When Bush was Texas governor, Sutton spent five years as his director of criminal justice policy. After Bush became President, Sutton became legal policy co-ordinator in the White House transition team, working with another Bush Texas colleague, Alberto Gonzalez, the present US Attorney General.

Earlier this year Sutton was appointed chairman of the Attorney General's advisory committee which, says the official website, 'plays a significant role in determining policies and programmes of the department and in carrying out the national goals set by the President and the Attorney General'. Sutton's position as US Attorney for Western Texas is further evidence of his long friendship with the President - falling into his jurisdiction is Midland, the town where Bush grew up, and Crawford, the site of Bush's beloved ranch.

'Sutton could and should have shut down the case, there and then,' says Bill Weaver, a law professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who has made a detailed study of the affair. 'He could have told Ice and the lawyers "go with what you have, and let's try to bring Santillan to justice". That neither he nor anyone else decided to take that action invites an obvious inference: that because the only people likely to get killed were Mexicans, they thought it didn't much matter.'

In the days after Reyes's death, officials in Texas and Washington held a series of meetings. Finally word came back from headquarters - despite the risk that Lalo might become involved with further murders, Ice could continue to use and pay him as an informant. And although Santillan had already been caught on tape directing a merciless killing and might well kill again, no attempt would be made to arrest him.

Lalo's statement, made in Dallas in February 2004, is a record of cruelty and violence, the words of a man who thought himself untouchable because of his relationship with Ice. In the months after Washington decided not to move on Santillan, the garden of the house at 3633 Calle Parsonieros began to fill with bodies. One day in September 2003, 'Santillan called to ask me to bury a guy who had apparently died of a heart attack at the moment he was kidnapped', Lalo's statement says. 'Another execution I remember was on 23 November... Santillan ordered me to have these drug mules meet him in the little Parsonieros house ... Loya [a corrupt police commander] put tape around their heads, but they could still breathe and one of them began to moan loudly, so Loya shot him in the head... but he didn't die immediately.' They were killed because they were careless in their smuggling work.

Then, and on other occasions, Santillan told Lalo in advance he was going to hold a carne asada. The deposition gives details of 13 murders, all but one of whose victims were later found buried at Number 3633. Each time Lalo crossed into Mexico his Ice handlers sought and obtained formal clearance from headquarters to allow their source to travel to a foreign country while working for a US agency. Throughout the period, Lalo says, he continued to talk to his handler Bencomo up to four times a day - usually in person, at the Ice El Paso office. He says his meetings with Santillan were all covertly recorded, while documents show that Ice had arranged for Lalo's phone to be bugged.

Curtis Compton, Bencomo's Ice supervisor, insisted in an affidavit that it did not know of any murders before they occurred: 'We only learned about the murders through interviews of Lalo after the fact. I acted in good faith that all my actions were legal and proper.'

Lalo's last country clearance was issued on 13 January, 2004. Once again Santillan had called him, asking him to come to Juarez to unlock the Parsonieros house for a carne asada. Next morning Luis Padilla disappeared.

Although the Padillas had attended Socorro high school in El Paso and lived in the US from childhood, both remained Mexican citizens, resident aliens with green-card work permits. Their children, Luis jnr, Jacqueline and Jasmine, were born in the US. Luis snr was two years ahead of Janet at school and they did not speak to each other until they attended a mutual friend's quinceria, a 15th birthday party.

Janet smiles at the memory: 'I liked everything about Luis straight away. He was silly, funny, a popular guy; he played a lot of sports. He was very religious and I started going to the same church, where he was president of the youth section.' For their first date he took her to a Mexican restaurant, and then a children's park: 'We just sat there on the swings, talking as if we'd known each other for years.' In 1996, when Janet was 16, they got married. They spent their wedding night in Juarez.

By 4pm on 14 January, Janet was on the point of phoning El Paso police when she received a call from a friend in Juarez. 'She told me, "I've just seen Luis over here. He was with some cops - they were putting him in a truck". I couldn't figure it out. He shouldn't have been in Mexico at all. At 8 o'clock I couldn't stand it any longer and I went over there myself. I went to all the different police stations. Nobody had him. Nobody knew where he was.'

Since they married Janet and Luis had only ever spent a night apart - when Luis junior was born; they had been living in Dallas, but she wanted to give birth in El Paso, in order to be near her family. In the fortnight after his disappearance, Janet and the children stayed with relatives. 'I couldn't go home. I couldn't be on my own. When he was lost, not knowing what had happened drove me crazy. When at last I heard something, at first I felt relief. A lot of people disappear in Juarez and you never know what happened to them.'

On 26 January, Janet got a call. Juarez police told her they had found some bodies. She was to meet them at the city mortuary. First, she was shown some photographs, but none was of Luis, 'I had to do it in person. I went in there and they had four bodies at that time. There were still ropes around their heads and their eyes were sticking out because they had been suffocated. It was horrible, horrible. One of them had a tattoo, one had silver teeth, another was too fat.'

Janet still did not believe this could have anything to do with Luis. 'He never took drugs and he never drank, beyond the odd beer. He never got into fights. He was still really into the church and he'd just been asked to coach middle-school sports. How could he be narco-fossa?' The police phoned again. This time they asked her to meet them at 3633 Calle Parsonieros. The place looked familiar. 'The hotel where we spent our honeymoon night backed on to the garden.

'I saw his shoes and his jacket. I went into the garden and they were probing the ground with a pole. That's when they found his body.' The police exhumed him, 'but it was hard to ID him because he was so decomposed. I looked at his hands and touched them. The flesh fell off.'

Two other men had been murdered on 14 January, both of them from Juarez. The next day Santillan told Lalo he had been asked to kill them as a favour for some associates of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes - Santillan had nothing against them personally. In such circumstances, murderers can make mistakes.

While Santillan and Lalo went on killing, Bencomo, his Ice colleagues and Assistant US Attorney Fielden were assembling their case. In December 2003 Fielden drew up a sealed indictment against Santillan. But although there was already some evidence of his involvement in killings, the indictment was only for trafficking, not murder. Before they could lure him to America and arrest him, they needed permission from the DoJ. They got it on 15 January, a day after Luis Padilla died.

But this did not bring the House of Death killings to an end. Under torture, one of Santillan's victims had revealed the address of Homer Glen McBrayer - a DEA special agent resident in Juarez who operated under diplomatic cover. At 6pm on 14 January, two men rang his doorbell continuously for 10 minutes. Afraid, his wife phoned him at work. McBrayer rushed home and ushered his wife and daughters into their car. As soon as they left the estate where they lived, they were stopped by a Mexican police car. Two civilian vehicles hemmed McBrayer's car in. Their occupants got out and waited while McBrayer talked to the cops. They were Santillan's men.

Having showed his diplomatic passport, McBrayer phoned a DEA colleague, who arrived within minutes. Unwilling, perhaps, to abduct two US agents, a woman and two children on a busy street, the cartel men backed off. As the standoff unfolded, Santillan twice called Lalo. He asked him to find out what he could about an American called Homer Glen - the corrupt police had not given McBrayer's surname. Santillan, claimed Lalo, said he thought he worked for the tres letras - code for the DEA - and intended to blow up his house.

The McBrayers were lucky to be alive, and the DEA, kept in the dark about the continued use of Lalo after the first murder six months earlier, reacted with fury. Even as Ice debriefed Lalo, it refused the DEA access to him and to recordings of the events of 14 January. Every principle governing informant handling and inter-agency co-operation appeared to have been flouted, and the Mexican government was not told of the carnage taking place on - and under - its soil.

Ice got Lalo to arrange a meeting with Santillan in El Paso and on 15 January Il Ingeniero was arrested. Two days later, Ice finally told the Mexicans that the garden at 3633 Calle Parsonieros was a mass grave. After bureaucratic delays, digging began on 23 January. On 18 February, Johnny Sutton filed a new indictment against Santillan, charging him with trafficking and five murders - including those of Reyes and Padilla.

The House Of Death suddenly seemed set to become a major national scandal. Bill Conroy, a reporter who works for an investigative website, Narconews.com, was about to publish an article about it. On 24 February, Sandy Gonzalez, the Special Agent in Charge of the DEA office in El Paso, one of the most senior and highly decorated Hispanic law enforcement officers in America, wrote to his Ice counterpart, John Gaudioso.

'I am writing to express to you my frustration and outrage at the mishandling of investigation that has resulted in unnecessary loss of human life,' he began, 'and endangered the lives of special agents of the DEA and their immediate families. There is no excuse for the events that culminated during the evening of 14 January... and I have no choice but to hold you responsible.' Ice, Gonzalez wrote, had gone to 'extreme lengths' to protect an informant who was, in reality, a 'homicidal maniac... this situation is so bizarre that, even as I'm writing to you, it is difficult for me to believe it'.

But Ice and its allies in the DoJ were covering up their actions, helped by the US media - aside from the Dallas Morning News, not one major newspaper or TV network has covered the story. The first signs came in the response to Gonzalez's letter to Gaudioso - not from Ice, but from Johnny Sutton.

He reacted not to the discovery of corpses at Calle Parsonieros, but with concern Gonzalez might talk to the media. He communicated his fears to a senior official in Washington - Catherine O'Neil, director of the DoJ's Organised Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Describing Gonzalez's letter as 'inflammatory,' she passed on Sutton's fears to the then Attorney General, John Ashcroft, and to Karen Tandy, the head of the DEA, another Texan lawyer.

Tandy was horrified by Gonzalez's letter. 'I apologised to Johnny Sutton last night and he and I agreed on a "no comment" to the press,' she replied on 5 March. Gonzalez would have no further involvement with the House of Death case and was ordered to report to Washington for 'performance discussions to further address this officially'.

Gonzalez was told that Sutton was 'extremely upset'. Gonzalez, who had enjoyed glittering appraisals throughout his 30-year career, was told he would be downgraded. On 4 May, DEA managers in Washington sent him a letter. It said that, if he quietly retired before 30 June, he would be given a 'positive' reference for future employers. If he refused, a reference would dwell on his 'lapse'. Gonzalez resigned, and launched a lawsuit - part of which is due to come to court tomorrow.

'I've been written off,' he says. 'They dismiss my complaints, saying I'm just a disgruntled employee. But once they knew about the carne asadas, they were legally and morally obligated to do something. They already had a solid case against Santillan for drugs and murder. What the **** else did they need? As for the DEA, they held my feet to the fire and joined the cover-up.' He had been neutralised, but there remained the danger that details of Ice's relationship with Lalo would surface at Santillan's trial.

Janet Padilla had also been dealt with. Ice has no legal responsibility for investigating murder, but after her husband's funeral Lalo's former handler, Bencomo, came calling. 'He told me that he was going to help me find my husband's killers and bring them to justice,' Janet says. 'He said to tell him anything I knew, because he would be in charge of the case. I saw him three or four times, and later I also met Juanita Fielden.' It did not occur to Janet that she ought to contact the police or other agencies.

For Janet, Santillan's indictment for murder was a moment of hope: 'I thought I was going to get justice for Luis.' But on 19 April Sutton announced a deal with Santillan - in return for his pleading guilty to trafficking and acceptance of a 25-year sentence the murder charges were dropped. 'All of the murders were committed in Juarez, by Mexican citizens, and all of the victims were citizens of Mexico,' Sutton said.

No one had any further use for Lalo. In August 2004 someone tried to shoot him at an El Paso restaurant - instead killing an innocent bystander. After that, he was taken into protective custody. And then, on 9 May 2005, Ice, the agency that had cherished him, decided that his US visa was irregular and began legal proceedings to deport him to Mexico - without doubt a death sentence. He is now in a maximum-security jail in the Midwest, fighting his former employers through the courts. In October The Observer won clearance to visit him with his lawyer, Jodi Goodwin. On the eve of the interview he was abruptly moved to a different facility where officials said a visit was impossible. Goodwin passed on a message: 'I'm not mad, I'm sad and disillusioned. Every time I did a job and brought them information, I was congratulated. Now they want to deliver me to my death.'

'If Congress and the media start to look at this properly, they will be horrified,' Sandy Gonzalez says. 'It needs a special prosecutor, as with the case of Valerie Plame [the CIA agent whose name was leaked to the media when her diplomat husband criticised Bush over Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction]. But Valerie is a nice-looking white person and the victims here are brown. Nobody gives a shit.'

For the three children who lost their father, and their mother, now struggling to make ends meet, it is difficult to cope. 'It's worst at night, when I put them to bed,' Janet Padilla says. 'I guess that's when it hits them. I tell them, "come on you guys, we got to make a prayer. Don't worry. Your daddy's watching you." But you know, it's very hard to make it as a dad as well as a mom.'

Who's who

· Sandy Gonzalez Special Agent in charge of the DEA in El Paso who was forced to resign after complaining about the official handling of the House of Death case

· Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Believed to lead the Juarez drug cartel. The US has a $5m bounty on his head.

· Heriberto Santillan-Tabares Known as 'the Engineer', he is a key henchman of the Juarez gang and the man who arranged the killings at the House of Death.

· Guillermo Ramirez Peyro Known as Lalo, he is a US government informant who worked as a henchman inside the Juarez drug cartel. Now in a maximum-security US jail.

· Fernando Reyes A Mexican lawyer, murdered at the House of Death. His killing was tape-recorded by Lalo

.· Johnny Sutton US Attorney for Western Texas and ex-adviser to Bush. Approved indictments against Santillan.

· Raul Bencomo The Ice Special Agent who was Lalo's main handler.

http://www.nbpc.net/

Do you feel, generically speaking, that it is appropriate for a elected official to be able to circumvent the justice system when applied to the agents who work for him by pardoning them? Do you not feel that allowing, much less encouraging, the Executive Branch to be able to free its agents who have been convicted by a duly convened jury in a duly convened trial is a good way to encourage future tyranny?

Crockett, I think most of us, including me, agree at an intellectual level that you are right in the point you are making.

The problem as I see it is the context. This particular situation occurred against a backdrop of an Executive branch that has been hell-bent on having open borders, that touted sending National Guard to our borders but won't let them engage or apprehend intruders, prevents border patrol from pursuing drug smugglers or illegals, signed off on a border fence but really doesn't want it, etc. On top of this, the drug smuggler in this case was actively pursued by the justice dept, and the entire case was brought to the attention of border patrol via a third BP agent who grew up in Mexico and was a childhood friend of the smuggler - very bizarre circumstances.

Given everything that has transpired, the public has every reason to question what happened with these agents and even to strenuously object to the outcome. This may or may not be entirely rational. But I do believe these agents should not be allowed to simply fall through the cracks, never to be heard from again.

Has anyone actually read the entire trial testimony to see if Sutton has accurately portrayed the government's side in his sound bites? Are there any obvious omissions of evidence that should have been brought in? How definitive was the evidence that was presented? I have heard that certain testimony that would tend to support the border patrol agents' side was not admitted. You're right about the jurors - they should have been adult enough to voice their confusion or objections during the trial before a verdict was rendered. This was a big mistake on their part, one that could have prevented this entire situation. What a shame that they didn't speak up.

Are the trial transcripts available? I sure would like to read them.