Where I live the trial earlier this year of Jose Campean and Ignacio Ramos was very big news. There is a good summary here. It is starting to come up again as some members of congress are attempting to get President Bush to reduce their sentence or pardon them. I don’t believe presidential power includes reducing a sentence so the only option would be a pardon. President Bush has promised to look at this but has offered no guarantees.
I’ll be honest and say I am not sure where I come out on this. I have followed this case with interest for the past year or more. When the trial was over back in January there was some national attention on the national news stations, and the prosecutor in the case, Johnny Sutton was on Hannity & Colmes earlier this week.
It seems to me the majority seem to side with the border patrol agents almost immediately. And during the trial while just reading the papers and watching TV segments about it, I felt the same way. Yet the agents did cover up the shooting by picking up shell casings. There is some conflicting testimony that they gave initially than what came out at trial. To me this shows they knew they did something wrong. Campean firing 14 times at a fleeing suspect seems a bit excessive.
On the other hand, Sutton seems condescending, and it appears he wanted to make an example of these guys. What reasons I could not tell you. During the trial there was even a press release that seemed like an attempt to get the media off of their back more than anything else. And this happened before the trial started.
I also find it interesting that US Rep. Sylvestre Reyes has finally come to the agents support. He is a former border patrol agent, and has been pretty quiet until this week regarding Campean and Ramos, which to me meant he sided with the prosecution. Has he changed his mind or is he buckling under political pressure?
I think the agents deserve some punishment. A border patrol agent is really a law enforcement officer of sorts. And there has to be some honor there, I would hope. Do they deserve 12 years in prison? Probably not. Do they deserve to get out right now and be fully pardoned? They probably don’t deserve that either, but many people convicted of crimes for the first time get a slap on the hand. The question is, if you shoot at and injure a drug smuggler, does that qualify for the leniant treatment?
In a large percentage of the atheist related blogs I read the writers are often liberal, anti-Bush, etc. And for obvious reasons the more religious blogs are conservative. I am not a big political person, but I do have some concerns.
Up until recently I have voted mostly Republican. Now before I lose all my new blogging friends let me explain. I owned my own business throughout most of the 1990’s. My wife runs a business owned by her family. And while I have always known the conservatives are going to pander to the religious I really didn’t give it a lot of thought back then. When you own or run a small business there are many times you are just getting by, and the last thing I wanted was mandatory minimum wage hikes or mandatory health care for part time employees. And this was always a danger with the Democrats. It is difficult enough running a business without having the government telling you you have to adhere to certain laws and pay people certain amounts no matter their job skills.
Even though I no longer run a business, I still find it hard to agree with the liberals on the business end of everything. I guess I am still suffering from the indoctrination of the self employed. I am pro choice, pro stem cell research, pro complete separation of church and state. Yet I am also pro have a gun (legally of course), pro death penalty, pro letting the states set wage and other business regulation laws, pro military (but not necessarily pro the current war we are in). So I am currently about as middling as you can get.
One problem that I think is actually pretty serious however, is the Supreme Court. If the GOP wins the presidency next year, that is a pretty big concern to me. They are already leaning right and it could become over abundant if the next one or two justices are selected by a Republican president. Yet I don’t see a Democratic candidate I like. Edwards seems to have the lead, but I don’t really like his Health Care Plan. If Clinton gets the nod, I won’t vote for her. I just don’t like her, sorry. I would vote for Bill Richardson, but I don’t think he is going to get enough support to get the nomination. I don’t really like any of the GOP candidates either except for Giuliani (and I don’t love him).
So, at this point, unless I can be convinced in the next 18 months or so, if it is Edwards or Clinton vs. Giuliani, I would vote for Giuliani, despite my concerns about the conservatism in the Supreme Court. Any advice attempting to sway my vote for the next year and a half will be appreciated.
Posted by cragar 
Posted by cragar 
