Free Republic

The highest court in the land refused to hear his plea. Now only one person can help George Ryan: President Bush. » Click to enlarge image Former Gov. Jim Thompson will ask President Bush to commute former Gov. George Ryan's prison sentence. The Supreme Court rejected Ryan's appeal to overturn his conviction on corruption charges on Tuesday. (Sun-Times) RELATED STORIESComplete Ryan trial coverage Pardon vs. commutation What's the difference between a pardon and a commutation? Pardon: Erases a conviction, such as a felony. Commutation: Conviction stands, but erases prison term, or trades a longer sentence with a shorter one. (Gov....

If President Bush would simply pardon the unjustly imprisoned former Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, we could all rest much easier knowing that in the United States, a foreign drug smuggler's word does not prevail over the word of federal agents in the line of duty. This week, the Kentucky-based group, Christians Reviving America's Values, filed an ethics complaint with the Texas Bar Association to investigate U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, whom the group argues willfully misled a jury to convict the agents. Here is a refresher on the case for those who need it: Messrs. Ramos and...

The two former U.S. Border Patrol agents who were sentenced to prison terms of more than a decade each for shooting at a drug smuggler who dumped a load in the United States, then fled on foot back into Mexico rather than be arrested, must ask if they want clemency in their cases, according to the White House. "There is a process under which anyone can apply for a pardon or a commutation. And if they want to take advantage of that process, they're absolutely welcome to," Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman, told WND today. She was responding to...

-- snip -- On Aug. 7, 1999, the one-year anniversary of the U.S. African embassy bombings that killed 257 people and injured 5,000, President Bill Clinton reaffirmed his commitment to the victims of terrorism, vowing that he "will not rest until justice is done." Four days later, while Congress was on summer recess, the White House quietly issued a press release announcing that the president was granting clemency to 16 imprisoned members of FALN. What began as a simple paragraph on the AP wire exploded into a major controversy...

DENVER (CBS4) ― President Bush heard a request to release a man in a Colorado prison during his visit to Saudi Arabia. Homaidan Al-Turki is behind bars awaiting the outcome of an appeal. A court convicted him in 2006 of sexually assaulting and enslaving his Indonesian maid in his Aurora home.

Last week, the White House released a list of 29 pardons issued by President Bush. It included drug dealers, carjackers, a moonshiner, a man convicted of stealing government property and another for receiving kickbacks in military procurement contracts. Conspicuously missing were former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean — who are currently serving 11- and 12-year federal prison sentences, respectively, for shooting a suspected drug smuggler in the buttocks on Feb, 17, 2005, about 30 miles southeast of El Paso. The border agents were convicted by a federal jury on charges that included assault with a...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- President Bush granted pardons Tuesday to carjackers, drug dealers, a moonshiner and an election-laws violator but not to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, his vice president's former top aide who was convicted in the case of the leaked identity of a CIA operative. In all, Bush pardoned 29 convicts and reduced the prison sentence of one more in the end-of-the-year presidential tradition. Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said Bush has granted 142 pardons and commuted five sentences since taking office in 2001 — lagging far behind the pace set by most modern presidents. The list was issued with...

President Bush should immediately commute the prison sentences of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents convicted in the shooting of a drug-smuggling suspect, says the chairman of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee. Rep. Bill Delahunt, Massachusetts Democrat who heads the subcommittee on international organizations, human rights and oversight, said in a resolution yesterday the 11- and 12-year sentences for Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, respectively, were "profoundly disproportionate" based on federal sentencing guidelines. Ramos, 37, and Compean, 28, were sentenced in October 2006 for shooting Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila in the buttocks in February 2005 when he was running from a...

KHARTOUM, Sudan - A British teacher jailed for insulting Islam after allowing her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad was released Monday when Sudan's president pardoned her, a British Embassy spokesman said. The conviction of Gillian Gibbons under Sudan's Islamic Sharia law shocked Britons and many Muslims worldwide. It also inflamed passions among many Sudanese, some of whom called for her execution. Snip

... & pardon these 2 Saturday, November 24, 2007 The degrading, draconian and disgraceful incarceration of former Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean indicates President George W. Bush, the self-anointed compassionate conservative, is capable of stone-cold stupidity. By doing their duty along the near-lawless border with Mexico, Messrs. Ramos and Compean have become tragic symbols of this nation's gross incompetence regarding enforcement of immigration law.

WASHINGTON -- Tuesday morning in the Rose Garden, President Bush promised May the turkey that he would not be served with a side of yams on Thanksgiving. Nor would May's pal Flower. Oh, happy day. The Thanksgiving presidential turkey pardon. It's a tradition, major newspapers have reported for years, that began in 1947 with President Harry Truman -- a sentimental reprieve from the man who had thumbs-upped two atomic bombs. "To paraphrase Harry today," Bush said, "you cannot take the heat -- and you're definitely going to stay out of the kitchen." Americans gobbled up this annual parable of mercy....

Today, President Bush pardoned the National Thanksgiving Turkey and his alternate during the 60th Annual Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation. Thousands of votes were cast to name the Thanksgiving Turkey and his alternate Thanksgiving at the White House, 2007 This year marks the 60th anniversary of the National Thanksgiving Turkey presentation. Though live Thanksgiving turkeys have been presented intermittently to presidents since the Lincoln administration, the current ceremony dates to 1947, when the first National Thanksgiving Turkey was presented to President Harry Truman.The presentation at times has brushed against broader history. For example, the November 1963 event was one of President...

TALLAHASSEE -- Richard Paey is a chronic pain patient in year three of a 25-year mandatory-minimum sentence for trafficking in drugs -- his own pain medication. But his freedom is just hours away. Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Cabinet voted unanimously to grant Paey a full pardon Thursday morning for his 2004 conviction on drug trafficking and possession charges. "We aim to right a wrong and exercise compassion and to do it with grace," the governor said. "Congratulations ... and I state he should be released today." With that, Paey's wife Linda, their three children, a family friend and...

Questioned by an audience member at a forum, President Bush said he could not promise to pardon former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. "I'm not going to make that kind of promise in a forum like this," Bush said at the Nashville event yesterday, which focused on his budget. Bush referred to the U.S. attorney responsible for the case, Johnny Sutton, as "a dear friend of mine" and called him a "fair guy" and "even-handed," according to a White House transcript. The president elicited laughter when he told the questioner, "You've got a nice smile, but...

Excerpt - WASHINGTON - A brawl over presidential pardons punctured the normally courtly ambiance of the Senate on Thursday night, but Republicans and Democrats agreed to bury the hatchet and erase the evidence before the sun rose Friday. In the heat of a partisan spat, Democrats forced a vote on a nonbinding measure to instruct President Bush not to pardon former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. But there's no record of the 47-49 vote in the daily record of congressional proceedings — or anywhere else. That's because senators agreed less than an hour later to undo their vote...

Washington - The chief Democrat probing President George W Bush's decision to erase the prison sentence of a former White House aide said on Sunday there is "the suspicion" the aide might have fingered others in the Bush administration if he served time. House Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers spoke of "the general impression" that Bush last week commuted I Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2½-year sentence in the CIA leak case to keep Libby quiet... Bush contended Libby's sentence was too harsh. Libby was convicted of lying and obstructing justice in an investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's identity.

One of the weaknesses of Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign is that imagining her in the Oval Office brings to mind the scandals that marked her husband's time as president. Especially now, when she is trotting old Bubba out to rev up the faithful, the sordid past undermines her and boosts Barack Obama's promise for a different kind of politics. The list of investigations, allegations and a few convictions during the Clinton administration was so long and tangled that the cases now morph into a fog. Distinctions among Travelgate and Whitewater and FileGate and GiftGate and the $100,000 commodities windfall get...

NOTE: I had Joe as a guest on my Rightalk Radio show a few years ago and am trying to get him on other shows. If you know of a host who wants him on, I have his contact info. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (Joe has written a current op-ed for the NY POST and hopes they will publish it) BILL PARDONED TERROR FALN CLEMENCY ENCOURAGED KILLERS By JOSEPH F. CONNER Killed by the FALN: Frank T. Connor, the author's father. September 27, 2006 -- BILL Clinton's scath ing, defensive attack against Chris Wall ace and Fox News on Sunday left me once...

Scooter Libby Roundup FACE THE FACTS: The reason Bush commuted Scooter Libby's sentence was SO LIBBY WOULDN'T TALK. Bush “guaranteed not only that Libby wouldn’t talk, but retaining Libby’s right to invoke the Fifth. This amounts to nothing less than obstruction of justice.” Now, the Bush administration is legally protected from having to answer questions. If Libby had been in prison, anyone could have gotten to him. Now, no one can get Libby to say a word about the real culprits, which are obviously Rove and Cheney/Bush. **First of all, it's vitally important to understand what Valerie Plame was actually...

I understand the angst of certain rule of law proponents upset by President Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's conviction. But most of the people outraged by it have no credibility, since they were utterly indifferent to the Clintons' habitual mockery of the rule of law and prolific and shady abuse of the pardon power during their co-presidency. As the president clearly has the constitutional authority to pardon or commute sentences for almost any reason, the issue isn't one of authority, but propriety. As a rule of law conservative I don't take lightly such executive interventions in the judicial process, believing...