New evidence prompts renewed call for pardon of Border agents
by Jim Brown
February 23, 2007
(OneNewsNow.com) - - A North Carolina congressman is once again calling on President Bush to pardon two imprisoned Border Patrol agents in light of the release of court transcripts from their trial. The lawmaker says he hopes to make public a letter to the president on the matter in hopes of rallying Americans to the defense of the agents. North Carolina Congressman Walter Jones is sending yet another letter to the White House today, urging the president to take action on behalf of El Paso Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. The men are serving 11 and 12 years respectively in a federal prison for shooting a fleeing illegal alien who was attempting to smuggle 743 pounds of marijuana into the U.S. The Mexican national was granted immunity for testifying against the agents.
Representative Jones is seizing on a report that shows the judge in the case did not allow the defense to present evidence to the jury of a second drug offense committed by the illegal alien. That revelation prompted yet more outrage from critics who say the government was more interested in prosecuting the agents than the drug smuggler.
The lawmaker explains he and more than 50 of his Republican House colleagues plan to solicit the president's intervention in getting Ramos and Compean out of prison until all the appeals have been heard. "I believe sincerely that the prosecutor, Mr. Sutton, down in Texas ... was overzealous in this effort," says Jones. "I think there's too many questions about the indictment and the prosecution for these men to be sitting in federal prison."
Jones vows that he and his colleagues will not let the issue go -- even though Congress is in recess this week and most lawmakers are back home. "I can assure you ... we are preparing a letter to the president to bring this to his attention," he says, adding that they plan to release the letter publicly in hopes that "the American people will again rally and ask the president to pardon these two men."
An attorney for agent Ramos has asked for a mistrial, arguing prosecutor Johnny Sutton withheld an exculpatory Department of Homeland Security memo from the defense during the trial.
