I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
In one of his final presidential acts, President Bush commuted the sentences of two border patrol agents who shot an unarmed Mexican man in the buttocks as he ran away from them along the Rio Grande River just southeast of El Paso, Texas, in 2005.
The two agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, shot the man, then tried to cover it up by removing the shell casings and filing false reports. But their cause was taken up by advocates of stronger border enforcement, who argued that the sentences being served by the two men–a little longer than a decade in prison for each, then three years of supervised probation and $2,000 in fines– were excessive.
The Mexican man, Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, was a drug smuggler who was driving a van that contained 743 pounds of marijuana.
Advocates for clemency say the agents were just doing their job. And while the case against the agents was condemned most vociferously by conservatives–who were upset that Aldrete-Davila was granted immunity from some drug charges in return for testifying against the agents–some liberals, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., also thought the sentences against the agents were excessive.
But federal prosecutors say that’s all baloney, according to The New York Times:
“These agents shot someone whom they knew to be unarmed and running away,” said the prosecutor, United States Attorney Johnny Sutton. “They destroyed evidence, covered up a crime scene and then filed false reports about what happened. It is shocking that there are people who believe it is O.K. for agents to shoot an unarmed suspect who is running away.”
Nonetheless, the two men–both from El Paso–will be free in March, the recipients of a final act of clemency from departing President George W. Bush. They’ll still have to pay the fines and participate in the three years of supervised release, however.
According to The Associated Press, a Bush administration official said the commutations reflect the belief that the men’s trials were fair and the verdicts just, but that the sentences were excessive.
The AP also reports that these two commutations bring the total to 11 for Bush, plus 189 pardons–fewer than half the amount issued by either Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan during their eight years in office.
