BUSH FREES 2 BORDER PATROL AGENTS IMPRISONED FOR SHOOTING SMUGGLER

01:09 PM CST on Monday, January 19, 2009

By TODD J. GILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News
tgillman@dallasnews.com

WASHINGTON – President Bush on Monday freed two Border Patrol agents who shot an unarmed Mexican drug smuggler in the back, bowing to relentless pressure from conservatives, border state lawmakers and foes of illegal immigration.

The commutation allows Ignacio Ramos and Jorge Compean to leave prison early. But it is not a pardon, and the conviction will stay on their records. Both will be on probation for three years under terms of the presidential order.

Late last week, all but two members of Congress from Texas joined a last-minute plea for clemency on behalf of the former border agents. Presidents typically issue a flurry of pardons in the final hours before leaving office, and often save the most controversial cases for last.

“We appeal to your good reason and sound judgment as fellow Texans,” the Texas lawmakers wrote.

The Justice Department announced the commutations.

“The president feels that they received a fair trial and it was a just verdict. These were law enforcement officers and they have the highest obligation to obey the law, and have to be held to accountable when they breech their responsibilities,” said a senior White House official, insisting on anonymity because clemency decisions are rarely discussed.

The official said Bush decided against a pardon because he felt the agents deserved to be punished, but “the president was concerned, as were many other Americans, including members of Congress from both sides of the aisle” that the agents’ sentences were overly harsh -- especially since they have been held in isolation for safety reasons.

As convicted felons, the agents won’t be able to work again in law enforcement. The process of freeing them from prison could take up to two months.

Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year prison terms, respectively, for the Feb. 17, 2005, incident near Fabens, Texas.

After a high-speed chase, a smuggler named Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila abandoned his van, which held 743 pounds of marijuana. The agents shot him as he ran away. They didn’t report the shooting, and they threw all the shell casings they could find into the river. Only later did they claim they’d spotted a gun.

Aldrete-Davila was later convicted on U.S. drug charges and is serving 9-1/2 years in prison.

The agents’ allies had expressed frustration at Bush’s refusal to issue clemency, noting with dismay that he pardoned his vice president’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby -- before Libby was even jailed -- for misleading federal authorities investigating the leak of a CIA officer’s identity.

"These two guys are political prisoners,” Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, said in November.

Last Thursday’s letter from the Texans gave Bush some political cover in a complex case fraught with political and legal landmines.

Bush’s handpicked U.S. attorney in San Antonio, Johnny Sutton, who had worked under him when Bush was governor, has long defended the prosecution, arguing that the agents acted improperly by covering up the shooting.

Immigrant advocates and Mexican residents had warned that leniency would encourage aggressive tactics by U.S. border authorities.

But allies of Ramos and Compean, including the union representing border patrol agents, considered it outrageous that Sutton had invoked a law that boosts sentences when a suspect uses a gun in commission of another crime – a law they say was never meant to apply to police or federal agents whose jobs require them to be armed.

At last count, 152 House members from both parties had signed a resolution calling on Bush to pardon the agents or commute their sentences.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, lauded the president for trimming the agents’ “excessive sentences.”

“These officers have served enough time for the mistakes they made and I thank President Bush for giving these officers their freedom back,” Brady said. “No law enforcement officer should ever fear an enhanced handgun sentencing guidelines being used against them over a split-second, line of duty decision.”

Bush conferred with White House counsel Fred Fielding and other senior aides before issuing the commutation, the Bush aide said. And the timing – 23 hours before Barack Obama is sworn in as president – stemmed from the fact that “he deliberated over it.”

The official took issue with the idea that Bush had given in to pressure.

“No. He agreed with the consensus view that the sentence was too harsh,” the official said.