WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Bill Delahunt introduced a resolution today calling on President George W. Bush to immediately commute the sentences of former United States Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean to time served.  The pair were sentenced to 11 and 12 years, respectively, for wounding a drug smuggler on the United States border with Mexico in 2005.

“President Bush can correct a gross miscarriage of justice with the stroke of a pen,” said Delahunt, “and this resolution will put Congress on record demanding that he do just that.  I hope that the President will allow these men to see their families in time for Christmas.”

Delahunt, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, held a hearing on this case on June 28, 2007, at the request of his panel’s senior Republican, Dana Rohrabacher of California, who co-sponsored today’s resolution.  “What I learned from that hearing,” Delahunt said, “was profoundly disturbing.”

On February 17, 2005, Ramos and Compean were involved in a high-speed chase to intercept a drug smuggling suspect, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila.  The suspect abandoned his van – filled with $1 million worth of marijuana – and tried to flee across the border.  During the melee that followed, both officers discharged their weapons; Ramos later testified he believed the suspect was armed, although a gun was never found.  Neither agent realized Aldrete-Davila was wounded, and he escaped into Mexico.

Shortly after the incident, Ramos and Compean were arrested and charged by the US Attorney’s Office in West Texas with multiple crimes, including “discharge of a firearm in commission of a crime of violence,” which carries a mandatory 10-year minimum sentence.  The U.S. Attorney’s office based its prosecution primarily on the testimony of Aldrete-Davila, to whom it had given a broad grant of immunity – but who was arrested this November and charged with smuggling drugs while under that immunity. 

A jury found Ramos and Compean guilty of the gun charge and others, and they were sentenced to 11 and 12 years in prison, respectively.  Their request to remain free on bail pending appeal was denied, and they have been in prison since January.

Delahunt said that under federal sentencing guidelines, other crimes – some much more heinous – have received much lighter sentences: sexual abuse, a little over eight years; manslaughter, less than four years; assault, less than three years; and cases involving firearms, three years.  The Congressman also noted that numerous observers – ranging from Border Patrol officials to Aldrete-Davila himself – believed the penalties Ramos and Compean received were excessive.

“It’s outrageous,” said Delahunt, himself a former prosecutor with decades of experience, “that these men should be serving more time than killers and rapists.  They were law enforcement officers; of course they carry firearms.  To hit them with a gun charge carrying a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years is harsh and unnecessary.”

Delahunt compared the treatment of Ramos and Compean to that of Vice President Cheney’s former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.  Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison for interfering in the investigation of the leak of the identity of a covert agent – a serious breach of national security.  But on the day that a US Court rejected Libby’s motion to remain free on bail, President Bush commuted his sentence, saying: “I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive.”

“The solution,” said Delahunt, “is clear.  President Bush should immediately commute the sentences of Ramos and Compean to time served.”

 

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