Senate committee to look at border agents' case

Washington Times:

A Senate committee will hold a long-promised hearing Tuesday into the prosecution of two U.S. Border Patrol agents sentenced to lengthy prison terms for shooting a suspected drug smuggler in the buttocks as he fled back into Mexico.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who raised questions about the prosecutions in February, will preside over the Judiciary Committee hearing. She is chairman of the Judiciary subcommittee on terrorism, technology and homeland security.

"Border Patrol agents have a difficult and often dangerous job in guarding our nation's borders," she said in letters to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. "I believe that aggressive prosecution of Border Patrol agents has a chilling effect on their ability to carry out their duties and on the morale of all agents.

...

Ignacio Ramos, 37, and Jose Alonso Compean, 28, were sentenced in October to 11- and 12-year prison terms, respectively, for shooting Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, a Mexican national, as he fled into Mexico after abandoning 743 pounds of marijuana near Fabens, Texas.

Mr. Aldrete-Davila was located in Mexico by Homeland Security officials and returned to the United States under a grant of immunity to testify against the agents. The agents said they fired at the man after he pointed what they thought was a gun at them.

Mrs. Feinstein has called the sentences "extreme," noting the "criminal background of Mr. Aldrete-Davila ... and given the fact Mr. Aldrete-Davila had physically resisted at least one attempt by agents Ramos and Compean to bring him into custody."

...
US Attorney Sutton is supposed to testify. He continues to defend his bad judgment in this case. Feinstein makes a good point about the drug mules resistance to being brought into custody. What Sutton's prosecution does is reward him for that resistance and make it more difficult for border agents to apprehend bad guys. His concern for the drug mule is misplaced.

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