Border agent jailed for using 'unreasonable force'

Washington Times:

A U.S. Border Patrol agent has been sentenced to two years in prison for improperly lifting the arms of a suspected 15-year-old drug smuggler while handcuffed — in what the Justice Department called a deprivation of the teenager’s constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force.

Agent Jesus E. Diaz Jr. was named in a November 2009 federal grand jury indictment with deprivation of rights under color of law during an October 2008 arrest near the Rio Grande River in Eagle Pass, Texas, where he and other agents had responded to a report that illegal immigrants had crossed the river with bundles of drugs.

In a prosecution sought by the Mexican government and obtained after the suspected smuggler was given immunity to testify against the agent,Diaz, a seven-year Border Patrol veteran, was sentenced last week by U.S. District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum in San Antonio. The Mexican consulate in Eagle Pass had filed a formal written complaint just hours after the arrest, alleging that the teenager had been beaten.

Defense lawyers argued there were no injuries or bruising to the suspected smuggler’s lower arms where the handcuffs had been placed nor any bruising resulting from an alleged knee on his back. Photos showed the only marks on his body came from the straps of the pack he carried containing the suspected drugs, they said.

Border Patrol agents found more than 150 pounds of marijuana at the arrest site.

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This seems like an unreasonable prosecution.  Why aren't they instead pursuing the people who strapped the dope to the mules back which caused the only actual bruises.  Giving this mule immunity is an abuse of prosecutorial discretion.