Petition calls for review of Border Patrol convictions

Washington Times:

A national online petition drive is demanding a review of the case against two U.S. Border Patrol agents who face 20 years in prison for shooting a drug-smuggling suspect in the buttocks as he abandoned nearly 800 pounds of marijuana and fled back into Mexico.
Among several groups endorsing the petition effort is a national coalition of American Hispanics who favor tighter immigration enforcement and have called the March convictions of Agents Ignacio Ramos, 37, and Jose Alonso Compean, 28, "a gross miscarriage of justice."
"To many people in South Texas, the Border Patrol is the only thing standing between them and the criminal gangs that run everything from drugs, to guns, to human beings across that border," said Al Rodriguez, chairman of You Don't Speak For Me (YDSFM). "The people who are out there doing battle with these criminals are heroes who deserve our complete support."
The petition effort, spearheaded by Rep. Walter B. Jones, North Carolina Republican, asks President Bush and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to reopen the case against the two agents, who face sentencing next month in a federal court in El Paso.
"The Justice Department's outrageous prosecution does nothing but tie the hands of our Border Patrol and prevent them from securing America against a flood of illegal immigrants, drugs, counterfeit goods and quite possibly, terrorists," Mr. Jones said. "This demoralizing prosecution puts the rights of illegal-alien drug smugglers ahead of our homeland security and undermines the critical mission of better enforcing current immigration laws."
Mr. Jones met with Assistant U.S. Attorney General Will Moschella on Friday, along with Andy Ramirez, head of the Friends of the Border Patrol, to discuss the government's case against the agents. The Web site address for the petition drive is www.justicefortheborderpatrol.com.
...

There is more on what on the surface appears to be an awful mistake by prosecuters in the US Attorneys office in El Paso. I have yet to see a good explanation of what they were thinking in granting immunity to a crook in order to prosecute law enforcement people trying to stop them from getting away with a crime. It is just an outrageous abuse of prosecutorial descretion. If this result cannot reversed the President needs to step in with a pardon.