Where was the conservative examination of the facts, and final judgement BEFORE the arrest of these Border Patrol Agents?
'Guest workers' my azzz...
Posted on 02/08/2007 10:21:37 AM PST by calcowgirl
A new Department of Homeland Security report about two Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a drug smuggler directly contradicts key conclusions reached by the department's own investigator on the case.
The report also does not support assertions about the agents made by the department's Office of Inspector General to several members of Congress during a private meeting last fall.
The Report of Investigation, written Nov. 20 - 21 months after the shooting - and released Wednesday, concludes that nine other agents at the scene of the shooting did not know it had taken place and thus were not responsible for reporting it.
The report states that Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean shot smuggler Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, then tried to cover up the incident by failing to file a report. It also asserts that the other agents on the scene were not aware shots had been fired.
All the names - other than Ramos, Compean and Aldrete- Davila - of those at the shooting scene, as well as several pages of the Border Patrol's firearms policy, were blacked out in the report.
"Subsequently, the DHS OIG investigation found no evidence to suggest that (names redacted) had any knowledge of an assault on a BP agent, nor did (names redacted) have any knowledge of a reportable shooting incident ...," the report states.
But that finding directly contradicts a Department of Homeland Security memo written March 12, 2005 - less than a month after the Feb. 17, 2005, shooting - by Christopher Sanchez, the original investigating officer for the Homeland Security Inspector General's Office.
In the memo, one of several confidential Homeland Security documents about the incident obtained by The Sun's sister newspaper based in Ontario, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Sanchez wrote that all the Border Patrol agents on scene, including two supervisors, knew about the shooting when it happened and failed to report it.
"Investigation disclosed that the following Border Patrol agents were at the location of the shooting incident, assisted in destroying evidence of the shooting, and/or knew/heard about the shooting: Oscar Juarez, Arturo Vasquez, Jose Mendoza, David Jaquez, Lance Medrano, Lorenzo Yrigoyen, Rene Mendez, Robert Arnold, and Jonathan Richards," Sanchez wrote.
Richards and Arnold were the supervisors on scene.
Further, Border Patrol firearms policy prohibits agents involved in a shooting from filing a written report on the incident, as reported earlier this week.
The policy requires that supervisors or investigators file the report within three hours of the incident.
"Ensure that supervisory personnel ... are aware that employees involved in a shooting incident shall not be required or allowed to submit a written statement of the circumstances surrounding the incident," according to the firearms policy.
The report released Wednesday also fails to support assertions made about Compean and Ramos by Office of Inspector General officials to four members of Congress during a private meeting in September.
At that meeting, OIG employees speaking on behalf of Inspector General Richard Skinner told the congressmen that the agents "were out to shoot Mexicans" the day they shot Aldrete-Davila, and that the smuggler posed no threat to them.
Nothing in the new report backs up either of those assertions.
On Monday, Skinner, in testimony before the House Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee, admitted under oath that the congressmen were given false information about the agents by high-ranking members of his department.
Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, one of the four congressmen, on Wednesday demanded the resignation of all investigators and Office of Inspector General officials who misled the congressmen.
According to Culberson's office, Elizabeth Redman, assistant inspector general for investigations under Skinner, made the allegations to House members and promised that evidence against the agents would be provided.
Inspector General Congresssional Liaison Tamara Faulkner also was at the September meeting on behalf of Skinner.
Neither Redman nor Faulkner could be reached for comment Wednesday.
Skinner also was questioned Wednesday at a House Homeland Security subcommittee on Management, Oversight and Investigations hearing by Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who also was at the September meeting. Skinner apologized to McCaul for the OIG employees' unsupported statements about the agents.
McCaul has called for a congressional hearing into the matter.
"While I appreciated Mr. Skinner's accepting his office's mistakes, the fact remains that members of Congress were, at the very least, misled, and at most outright lied to," McCaul said. "Hearings need to be held about this, and more questions need answering."
TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said the report released by the Inspector General's Office should not be trusted now that Skinner has admitted his office deceived the congressmen.
"This report is a transparent attempt to justify the government's inexcusable prosecution of two innocent law-enforcement officers," Bonner said. "Rather than being an objective recitation of facts, it is interspersed with innuendo, misrepresentations, and outright lies."
Compean and Ramos were convicted in March of shooting Aldrete-Davila in the buttocks, violating his civil rights and attempting to cover up their actions. They were sentenced to 12 and 11 years, respectively, in federal prison.
Aldrete-Davila was found to be driving a van with nearly $1 million of marijuana. He is suing the Border Patrol for $5 million.
Three jurors have apparently told reporters that the foreman "told them their verdicts had to be unamimous," and that they were "not allowed to be a hung jury."
Now IF this report is accurate, etc. etc. BTW, a local, highly experienced attorney tells us that scuttlebutt has it that the defense team was "out-lawyered" by the prosecution.
For example, in regard to the infamous, so-called "Subsequent Arrest" of the informant after he received immunity: it "officially" may have never happened. I.E., he was taken into custody, and released; never actually "arrested, or booked," so the prosecution felt they were technically correct in not disclosing this to the defense, and they followed up by successfully obtaining a gag order and the sealing of records.
Your tax dollars at work.
Twisting in the wind, hanging from their own ptard, the Bush administration withered and died.
Long live global tyranny.
Those people that lied should be fired immediately for lying to Congress
Also .... is this the dude that is a childhood friend of the drug muggler??
But that finding directly contradicts a Department of Homeland Security memo written March 12, 2005 - less than a month after the Feb. 17, 2005, shooting - by Christopher Sanchez, the original investigating officer for the Homeland Security Inspector General's Office.
Well, verdicts do have to be unanimous, and judges to frown on 'hung juries', which I guess could be interpreted by some to be pushing them, but usually all communication by the judge to the jury is vetted past all the lawyers first.
I'm not sure what the rules are about the way foreman manipulate jurors. IN the one case I was a juror, the foreman did a LOT of manipulation, and it took a lot of effort to overcome his bias. I would imagine that a strong person on a jury could sway people pretty easily.
But post-case recantations of jurors are discounted, because once they are tainted with media coverage and possibly inquiries from the defendant lawyers or supports of the defendant, you can't be certain they are still speaking strictly based on the evidence in the case.
Some jurors might be swayed by the absurd sentences for example to be fighting the charge that caused the long sentence (NONE of the reports I've seen about the jurors says whether they were protesting ALL the guilty verdicts, or just one, or a couple -- I'm not saying there isn't a report that does state that, just I haven't seen it).
Or they could actually be threatened, or bribed, to change their position. Or maybe they read other evidence or conjecture that wasn't allowed to be presented because of lack of foundation or because the judge ruled it was not germane. Those would be things to include in the appeal, which I presume is slowly winding it's way up through the system -- or maybe they are focusing on the media blitz.
If you had another 3 jurors who insisted on guilt but corroborated the pressure, that would be the first step to getting the "juror" issue on the front burner. I haven't seen any other jurors agreeing that there was such pressure, but again maybe there was a report and we didn't see it.
HM was sunk when she couldn't answer legitimate questions. If the reactionaries hadn't blasted her for weeks for random quotes out of context from years earlier, and screamed for senators to deny her a vote based on her lack of a known position on Roe V. Wade, she would have been rejected by the democrats and republicans based on the FACTS, and America wouldn't have gotten the idea that conservatives were simply looking for ideologues.
There was nothing wrong with those arguing against her because of the lack of a paper trail or familiarity with constitutional issues. But there was a lot of other things thrown out their in an attempt to sway the politics without regard to the facts.
It could be the same here. The facts could end up exonerating these two men, but right now it's mostly shrill rhetoric about open borders, pro-drug prosecuters, a corrupt attorney general, and a president who should be impeached. Hardly a conservative way of examining the facts and reaching a rational judgment.
Heard of any nuclear bombs going off at a port recently?
Where was the conservative examination of the facts, and final judgement BEFORE the arrest of these Border Patrol Agents?
'Guest workers' my azzz...
I've got that image up on my images page. I must have used it in one of my anti-illegal blog diatribes.
Apparently, judge's instructions were fine. The jurors reportedly say they were pressured by the foreman, who wouldn't let them hang and was intimidating. Some question about his connections as well.
Given the controversy now swirling around this case, and the inevitability of appeal, I am wondering why the two BP agents aren't (weren't) released on bail pending appeal.
Chris Sanchez was the DHS-OIG investigator in charge of the case.
Rene Sanchez is the BP Agent from Arizona who was the friend of the smuggler.
Both demonstrated questionable behavior throughout this case, IMO.
Rene Sanchez's mother knew the mother of the smuggler.
Do you know if the jurors reported to the judge that they were deadlocked?
The prosecutor did not foresee the firestorm this case would create. Had these two BP men been traditional criminals, the (perhaps overly) slick lawyering used to nail them would probably have been applauded by the very same people now in various stages of outrage (including me.)
Unfortunately, now Sutton is actually benefitting from the controversy and confusion swirling around the case! He, and the other agencies caught off base by the popular reaction, are rather cagily trying to control and direct the release of information, and disinformation, as much as they can. Evidently, they may have gone too far with it, though, by misdirecting congress.
That, and the original decision to prosecute, of course, are the most disturbing aspects of the whole tawdry affair. Guilty or innocent, these BP Agents should be free pending appeal, which I believe to be a necessary first step in reaching a workable deal.
Maybe the 5th Circuit will see it that way, as erton suggests. However, this ain't no 9th circuit... i.e. they are usually, I hear tell, rather pro-prosecutor.
I'm surprised the are not out pending appeal, but I don't know how often people are out pending appeal.
I remember Martha Stewart was not out while pending appeal, at the time I think the talking heads said the appeal had little chance so she figured it was better to get the sentence over with than wait a year under a cloud and then have to go to jail.
Well the district court judge isn't cutting Ramos any slack. He filed a pauper motion 3 weeks ago, basically saying that he was broke, his prior attorney's were continuing on a pro-bono basis, and that he didn't even have the funds to pay for the transcript to support an appeal.
Judge Cardone slapped him down and denied it on Wednesday.
Wow, did he do anything to PO the judge other than this campaign for the pardon by his supporters. Maybe the judge thinks he has access to funds through his supporters. Have they started a legal defense fund? It may be time to start if one hasn't started yet. I have mentioned this on prior threads.
Rumor has it, like everything else in this damned case, that the foreman would not permit them to report out. If true, could that be significant at this juncture?
IMHO, probably.
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