Lawyers react to commutation of clients' sentences

On his second-to-last day in office, President George W. Bush commuted the controversial prison sentences of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting at a fleeing drug smuggler while on duty along the U.S.-Mexico border. The two agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, were convicted in 2006 in connection with the February 2005 shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila near Fabens, Texas and for covering up the incident. Ramos is serving a sentence of 11 years and a day; Compean is serving a 12-year sentence. “The sentence is to expire on March 20,” says Robert Baskett of the Law Office of Robert Baskett in Dallas, an attorney for Compean. Baskett says after their release the two men will be on three years of supervisory release, which is “sort of like probation.” David Botsford, an attorney for Ramos, says he was notified Monday by the Department of Justice that the sentence was commuted to time served. “Obviously, I’m very pleased for Mr. Ramos and his family and all law enforcement agents out there who have to make split second decisions on a daily basis,” Botsford says. In July 2008 a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the agents’ convictions for assault, discharge of a weapon in the commission of a crime of violence, and deprivation of civil rights in United States v. Ignacio Ramos; Jose Alonso Compean. The panel vacated the convictions for tampering with an official proceeding and remanded the case for sentencing. The U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, Johnny Sutton, has been criticized by members of Congress, TV commentators and activists for prosecuting the two agents. “Like the trial judge and the court that reviewed the cases on appeal, President Bush found that Compean and Ramos were justly convicted of serious crimes and that their status as convicted felons should remain in place,” Sutton writes in a statement. “After careful thought and deliberation, President Bush has concluded that Compean and Ramos have been sufficiently punished, and that the remainder of their terms should be spent on supervised release. I have only the highest respect for the President’s decision to allow their convictions to stand, but to reduce the time they must spend in prison.” 
-- Jeanne Graham

Comments

[Abidin]

The timing was good.......take a bit of the dnthuer. It would have...in a NORMAL inauguration, but THE ONE seems to have overcome and this is a blip on the radar screen it took Yahoo an hour at least to finally print! FOX had it immediately.I'm hoping Obama doesn't pardon them and he could........he was threatening to commute them, apparently, to get Conservatives on his side (as IF!)...he could pardon and steal all Bush's righteous dnthuer.But, this was a VERY HAPPY day because of this commutation, no doubt about it!! Hi, Sparky!