I had hoped he might do it, now it appears that he has.
In his final acts of clemency, President George W. Bush on Monday commuted the prison sentences of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents whose convictions for shooting a Mexican drug dealer ignited fierce debate about illegal immigration.Bush's decision to commute the sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who tried to cover up the shooting, was welcomed by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress. They had long argued that the agents were merely doing their jobs, defending the American border against criminals. They also maintained that the more than 10-year prison sentences the pair was given were too harsh.
Rancor over their convictions, sentencing and firings has simmered ever since the shooting occurred in 2005.
Ramos and Compean became a rallying point among conservatives and on talk shows where their supporters called them heroes. Nearly the entire bipartisan congressional delegation from Texas and other lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle pleaded with Bush to grant them clemency.
Bush didn't pardon the men for their crimes, but decided instead to commute their prison sentences because he believed they were excessive and that they had already suffered the loss of their jobs, freedom and reputations, a senior administration official said.
The action by the president, who believes the border agents received fair trials and that the verdicts were just, does not diminish the seriousness of their crimes, the official said.
Compean and Ramos, who have served about two years of their sentences, are expected to be released from prison within the next two months.
Great news. Its interesting that Compean and Ramos seem to be at the opposition end of the Supreme Court's generosity towards police error.
Glenn Reynolds has started an interesting debate about the exclusionary rule--a legal principle that provides a defendant a defense based on how evidence was collected, rather than whether it proves a crime was committed or not.
According to Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, "When police mistakes leading to an unlawful search are the result of isolated negligence attenuated from the search, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements, the exclusionary rule does not apply."You can see their reasoning. Herring's a bad guy. Why punish the police by letting a guilty man go free when they just made a simple mistake?
Except that the rest of us enjoy no such immunity. If you're a citizen who, say, accidentally carries a gun into a designated "gun-free" zone, the Supreme Court will not say that you can escape punishment because your action was "the result of isolated negligence." For citizens, there's no "I forgot" defense.
Likewise, police are given a pass, under the doctrine of "good faith immunity," from having to understand the intricacies of suspects' constitutional rights: A right must be clearly established before an officer is liable for violating it, apparently on the theory that constitutional law is just too confusing for police.
But ordinary citizens are expected to comply with the tens of thousands of pages of federal criminal laws and regulations (and more at the state level) and are told that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" - and this is true even in cases where the prosecution's theory of criminality is a novel one.
Cynics might be forgiven for thinking that, instead of a government of, by and for the people, we've got a two-tiered system in which "public servants" instead enjoy the privileges of "public masters."
The Supreme Court might want to think again before doing more to encourage such cynicism.
I'll confess, I've long worried about being imprisoned in this country. I'm no criminal, but you don't have to be. In taking a mandatory traffic school course, I've discovered that I can be jailed for 90 days for driving with a suspended license, which I can get for not paying a ticket I may or may not have collected in Florida. I could get a year in jail for not paying my car insurance premiums. I could get shot for prematurely looking for my license and registration before being asked to produce them by the officer. There is good logic for all of these rules, but I can't help but notice that I'm always the one threatened with jail or a bullet through the head.
Add to this the virtual certainty that your police force is corrupt to some degree, and its a serious concern. My son had $700.00 in cash taken from him by the police, never to be seen again. Who are you going to complain to? Unless its on video, it'll be the solid blue wall of silence against your word.
For that reason, its nice to have the President's pardon power, but let's face it, you've got to have a lot of juice just to get him to notice you.
I don't wanna go to jail...
