Pirate's Cove

What’s going on

A panel of federal appeals court judges will hear arguments today in the controversial case of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents sentenced to more than a decade in prison for shooting a suspected drug smuggler and then trying to cover it up.

The hearing in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans is the latest chapter in a case that has become a flash point in the nation’s debate on illegal immigration. On CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight and on Houston’s AM radio waves, former agents Ignacio “Nacho” Ramos and Jose Compean have been hailed as “heroes” and “political prisoners.”

“They’ve been incarcerated in isolation now for almost a year. It’s just not right,” said Joe Loya, Ramos’ father-in-law, who plans to travel to New Orleans with his daughter, Monica Ramos, to hear the appeal of the agents’ convictions. “These two men were doing their jobs.”

Attorneys for the former agents are pushing for a new trial, arguing the agents acted in self-defense, according to briefs filed with the appeals court. They also contend that Ramos and Compean were improperly charged with discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, which carries a mandatory sentence of 10 years. Bob Baskett, Compean’s attorney, said that statute should not be applied to law enforcement officers acting in the line of duty.

According to the defense arguments, the federal judge in El Paso erred by allowing Aldrete to invoke the Fifth Amendment on the witness stand, Baskett said, and by not allowing them to question him more extensively about evidence of additional smuggling attempts.

“It basically came down to (Aldrete’s) word against theirs, and if he’s shown to be a lying dope dealer, that might have influenced the way the jury saw the evidence,” Baskett said.

Look, I will admit, the evidence does kinda show that Ramos and Compean did try and cover up some of what they did, which was wrong. But to put them in jail for 10-11 years? Absurd, especially considering that Aldrete is a stone cold drug smuggler.

Read the rest of the article.

Updating: Via Hot Air (meaning I do not have to hunt)

Federal prosecutors may have overreacted in their case against two Border Patrol agents who were sentenced to lengthy prison terms after jurors convicted them of shooting a fleeing drug suspect and hiding evidence of the incident, an appeals court judge said Monday.

Judge E. Grady Jolly, one of three judges from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hearing the case of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, questioned whether the two agents would have been charged if they had reported the shooting.

“For some reason, this one got out of hand, it seems to me,” Jolly said of the agents’ prosecution.

“It does seem to me like the government overreacted here,” Jolly said, noting the severity of the charges and the lengthy sentences prosecutors sought, as he questioned Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Stelmach.

The judges gave no timeline for when they would rule on the appeal.

Bryan writes: That tells me that the judge thinks the shooting itself may have been justified. If one of the other two judges on the panel agrees with Judge Jolly, Compean and Ramos may get some justice after all.

Let’s hope so.