Free Republic

I had been grappling with the right and wrong of the situation concerning the two imprisoned border agents for some time until I viewed a segment on the O’Reilly Factor Thursday where he interviewed Johnny Sutton, the U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the case and put these men in jail for doing their job. He came across looking like a straight-shooter who was somewhat conflicted about a case he knew was weak, but was trying to put the best face on the prosecution that he could. His explanations convinced me that something was very wrong here, and to rethink this whole,...

EL PASO, Texas — Two U.S. Border Patrol agents were watching the Mexican boundary last year when they stopped a van carrying 743 pounds of marijuana. The driver fled back across the Rio Grande — with a gunshot wound in his buttocks. Federal prosecutors convinced a jury in March that the agents had shot a defenseless man and schemed to cover it up. Much of the evidence against them came from the drug runner, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, who reported the shooting to a friend at the Border Patrol in Arizona. Aldrete-Davila was given immunity from prosecution by the U.S. attorney's office....

<p>A national online petition drive is demanding a review of the case against two U.S. Border Patrol agents who face 20 years in prison for shooting a drug-smuggling suspect in the buttocks as he abandoned nearly 800 pounds of marijuana and fled back into Mexico.</p>

EL PASO, Texas - The union representing U.S. Border Patrol agents has set up a legal defense fund for two agents convicted earlier this year of wounding a suspected drug smuggler and then trying to cover up the shooting. The National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents nearly all Border Patrol agents, launched the fund this week to help former agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean pay for an appeal and provide some money for their families. The men were suspended without pay after their 2005 arrests and fired after a federal jury convicted them in March. Union...

The House Judiciary Committee Thursday called for congressional hearings and an investigation into the case of two Border Patrol agents convicted of violating an alleged drug smuggler's civil rights. Congressional leaders asked for the investigation during a House field hearing about border security and immigration in El Paso, Texas, after Andy Ramirez, chairman of the Chino-based Friends of the Border Patrol, presented his opening statement, which included the agents' story. Family members of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, the convicted agents, attended the hearing. The agents, who are free pending their sentencing hearings in September, were not allowed to...

I'm getting a bad feeling about what I see happening to our troops in the field – at home and abroad. I'm referring to the growing number of serious charges against U.S. troops in Iraq and some recent prosecutions of Border Patrol agents right here in this country. First of all, I would like to remind everyone that we are at war. We can never afford to forget that – not for a minute. We are at war with people on foreign soil who want to destroy America. And we are at war with people invading this country – some...