US News
Bush commutes sentence of border patrol agents who shot drug dealer
Jan 19, 2009, 19:18 GMT
Washington - George W Bush, on his last full day as president of the United States, commuted the sentence Monday of two border patrol agents convicted of shooting a suspected drug smuggler along the country's border with Mexico.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers had called for Bush to pardon Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, both from El Paso, Texas, who were sentenced in November to prison terms of 12 years and 11 years respectively.
Bush rejected the pardon requests, but both will now be freed on March 20, the US Justice Department said. They will still be under probation for three years and have to pay a 2,000-dollar fine.
Compean and Ramos shot and injured an unarmed Mexican suspected of smuggling drugs into the United States. Osvaldo Aldrete Davila was shot in the buttocks as he fled a van carrying 750 pounds of marijuana. Davila was given immunity by prosecutors to testify against the agents.
Both men were convicted of assault with a dangerous weapon and civil rights violations. The two agents argued they thought Davila was armed at the time.
The case became swirled up in the country's long-running debate over how to stem illegal immigration and protect the US border. Some lawmakers, as well as the border patrol agents' union, argued the conviction made other agents hesitant in discharging their duties.
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Older Talkback
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Re: 'Same as Lewis Libby clemency controversy'
You're copying and pasting from the wrong blogspots. So far Libby has not been pardoned and his sentence not commuted. Whether he should be pardoned or not is questionable. And President Bush would be right to avoid it. Bush would be raked over the coals if he pardons him, and will probably be raked over the coals if he doesn't. If Obama wants to pardon him later on, he could do it and no one would care.
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Same as Lewis Libby clemency controversyJan 19th, 2009 - 21:38:29
'Scooter' Libby jail sentence commuted by US President George Bush
After Libby was denied bail during his appeal process on July 2, 2007, President Bush commuted Libby's 30-month federal prison sentence, calling it 'excessive', but he did not change the other parts of the sentence and their conditions. That presidential commutation left in place the felony conviction, the $ 250,000 fine, and the terms of probation. Yet, it has been highly controversial; not only are presidential commutations rarely granted, but, when granted, they generally occur after the convicted person has already served a substantial portion of his or her sentence:
'We can't find any cases, certainly in the last half-century, where the president commuted a sentence before it had even started to be served', said former Justice Department pardon attorney Margaret Colgate Love. Reportedly 'outraged' by Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence, on July 2, 2007, Wilson told CNN: 'I have nothing to say to Scooter Libby. ... I don't owe this administration. They owe my wife and my family an apology for having betrayed her. Scooter Libby is a traitor. Bush's action ... demonstrates that the White House is corrupt from top to bottom'.
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