Border Patrol Shooting Trial Transcripts Available
The trial transcripts in the Ramos/Compean case are available, here.
Have fun.
Thanks to commenter EricPWJohnson for the heads up.
I will have brief commentary in an update.
UPDATE: The transcripts do answer one question that was the source of debate between me and a pro-agent commenter calling himself retire05. retire05 had said “you have a jury that is not allowed to hear that immunity was given to Davila . . .”
I was highly skeptical and asked retire05:
Do you have a reliable link for the proposition that the jury did not get to hear that Davila got use immunity? If that’s true, it sounds like a major error by the judge, and I predict the case will be promptly reversed.
But I hope you have something better than an assumption or that confusing presentation by the Friends of the Border Patrol guy.
retire05 asked:
Why would the Union claim that the deal cut with Davila was “sealed” if it were not?
I will point out that in Volume VII, the very first question asked of the alleged drug smuggler by the defense attorney is about the immunity agreement:
12 Q. Mr. Aldrete, my name is Mary Stillinger. I represent
13 Ignacio Ramos. I would like to ask you first, you’re
14 testifying here under a grant of immunity. Is that correct?
15 A. Yes.
And indeed, the discussion of immunity goes on for pages. And a quick glance through some of the volumes of the transcripts shows that the issue of immunity came up time and time again in front of the jury.
Now, glancing through this section, I will offer this tidbit to the pro-agent crowd. There is a long discussion of the nature of the immunity agreement — use? transactional? a “weird hybrid”? — and it appears to culminate in this exchange:
8 MS. STILLINGER: I understand Ms. Kanof to be saying
9 that the hybrid is he’s getting transactional immunity, but
10 only for those events that he discloses. So if it turns out he
11 murdered somebody on that day, he doesn’t have immunity for
12 that. But he does have transactional immunity for every event
13 he told them about.
14 MS. KANOF: As long as he tells the truth. As long as
15 he tells the truth.
That ain’t what Jeffrey Sutton said! What he did say was this:
Prosecutors promised Aldrete that they would not use his truthful statements and testimony to prosecute him for the events that occurred on Feb. 17, 2005. . . . This type of “use immunity” does not give blanket immunity for any crimes he may have committed or may commit in the future. If there were other admissible evidence besides his own statements sufficient to convict him, he could be prosecuted for the offense he describes.
Unless another portion of the transcript cuts back on what I quoted above, this is simply inaccurate.
There are some disturbing questions swirling around this case — and I say that as someone who said, initially, that if what the U.S. Attorney said in his fact sheet is true, then the agents were properly convicted.
But it appears that at least part of his fact sheet was wrong. The accuracy of the rest of it remains to be seen.
I have a feeling that the transcripts should be a gold mine of information, for anyone with patience and interest — and who lacks an agenda. And speaking of those qualities . . .
DRJ? If you want to go through the transcripts and post summaries and/or commentary, I will set up an account for you, and you can put up as many posts as you like.
I would really love that.
What do you say?
Wow. This is a little over my head in terms of legal expertise/attention span, but it’s nice to see a balanced look at it instead of ‘the US government hates its own citizens!!’
PS, FIRST!
Heh, heh.
David N. Scott (71b49c) — 2/13/2007 @ 11:21 pmWe can understand two things
Sutton did not try the case
Sutton’s immunity grant has NO bearing on a case – it is not in the nature of prosecution and police to HAVE to disclose the cooperation and negotiations with witnessess pretrial and the same goes for the defense.
Remember Sutton is not on trial…
AD could have been given a get out of jail free card a stack of them had nothing to do with the gunshot wound and the fellow agents testimonies.
Its a real poor tactic (argueably) to put the prosecution on trial it the equivalent of last resort tactics
they had a written confession and the testimony of three other officers and the 2 border patrol supervisors on the scene
Unless they could produce his hind end thats the only way Sutton could get a conviction to show that they indeed shot him.
And so goes this astonishing saga…..
EricPWJohnson (405d78) — 2/14/2007 @ 2:11 amI don’t have time for this but law is addictive, can’t it?
Vol II – hearing regarding modification of house arrest & confinement restrictions.
Vol III – Hearing on motions in limine:
1. The Court considered the government’s motion in limine to prevent the defense from injecting the topic of “lawlessness on the border” and specifically problems in Hudspeth County, Texas, or any incident than the one in this case (p 3-12) insofar as it might relate to the BP agents’ state of mind. [Interestingly, the government’s attorney claimed that law enforcement is dangerous but also indicated they could offer evidence that drug smugglers rarely carry guns (p 7).] Defense counsel’s response is at pp 12-29. On a personal note, I was impressed with defense counsel Ramirez’ cogent argument at pp 27-28.
2. The Court considered the government’s second motion in limine to suppress references to Aldrete-Davila smuggling or possessing marijuana (pp 37 et seq), either with regard to his character for truthfulness or regarding immunity.
In this regard, the Court suggested that the parties stipulate that Aldrete-Davila received immunity, a suggestion to which defense counsel objected (p 54 et seq). The Court took this limine matter under advisement so there was no ruling on that matter in this volume of the transcript.
Note to Patterico: As a part of his testimony/immunity deal, Aldrete-Davila will apparently get reconstructive medical treatment in the US (pp 63-64).
Vol IV – Status conference:
1. The Court granted a motion in limine (at p 23) regarding Agent Ramos’ past arrests and BP disciplinary matters (p 3 et seq), subject to reconsideration if Ramos’ testimony opened the door to those matters in his testimony. I won’t get into the details of the arrests for domestic matters. The government also sought to use Ramos’ failure to report his arrests to support the current charge that Ramos failed to properly file a report.
2. By agreement, the Court granted a motion in limine regarding a shooting incident involving BP Agent Fuentes and the procedures followed in that incident (pp 23-25).
3. The Court granted a motion in limine regarding the use of Compean’s statement against Ramos based on Bruton. (P – I’m not sure what Bruton is, but it apparently prohibits or concerns statements made by one defendant implicating another defendant. In this case, it involved a Bruton instruction regarding Compean’s written statement that he thought Ramos was trying to kill Aldrete-Davila.)
4. The parties agreed to the government’s production of unidentified documents described as Jencks’ material (p 27).
5. The Court tentatively denied a defense motion in limine to prohibit the government from referring to Aldrete-Davila as the victim (p 28).
6. The Court granted a defense motion in limine to prohibit the government from calling a high-speed pursuit illegal as opposed to a policy violation (p 29, & p 49).
7. The Court denied a defense motion to identify the name of the Juarez’ clinic where Aldrete-Davila received medical treatment immediately after the incident (p 31-32), apparently on the basis that Aldrete-Davila could/would not identify it and the government had no duty to make him.
8. The Court denied as moot (p 33) a defense motion for inspection, discovery and production regarding confessions made by Compean (p 30-32):
9. The Court granted (p 35) a defense motion in limine concerning a 404b notice concerning bad acts or character evidence regarding Agent Compean that the government did not remember filing (p 34).
10. The Court denied (p 37) a defense motion in limine requiring that the government first approach the bench prior to offering Agent Compean’s oral or written statements in order to discuss whether the statements were voluntarily made (p 35). Compean’s defense counsel did not urge a motion to suppress and noted that they did not have any government documents produced regarding Compean’s oral statements (p 38).
11. The Court considered but did not rule on the government’s request regarding voir dire on Aldrete-Davila’s possible drug addiction (p 39).
12. The Court also noted a supplemental Giglio disclosure (p 43) and discussed scheduling and voir dire procedures (pp 43-48). Apparently Ramos has Tourette’s and such condition/mannerisms were to be included in voir dire (p 48). There was a lengthy discussion regarding specific areas to be address in voir dire (pp 49-59), which was to be conducted solely by the Court.
DRJ (605076) — 2/14/2007 @ 3:00 amDRJ
Youre not driving or operating heavy machinery while you are doing this right? 🙂
EricPWJohnson (405d78) — 2/14/2007 @ 3:13 amVol V – Pretrial hearing to reschedule jury selection due to electrical problems at the courthouse, along with a brief discussion of jury instructions.
Vol VI – February 21, 2006
Voir Dire (pp 1-173)
Jury Selection and Court’s Instructions (pp 173-182)
Opening Statement, Government (pp 182-204)
Opening Statement, counsel for Ramos (pp 204-214)
Opening Statement, counsel for Compean (pp 214-224)
Government’s case starts at p 225 …
… and I’m quitting for now.
DRJ (605076) — 2/14/2007 @ 3:20 amEric,
I guess I am off-kilter because I posted these comments on the wrong thread.
Patterico,
Please move these comments if you want them elsewhere and feel free to fix my lousy grammar in the first line of comment 3.
DRJ (605076) — 2/14/2007 @ 3:31 amHmm.
Patterico, could you (or someone else) explain the significance – in simple, pithy English – of your point about the immunity? I don’t understand.
The way it reads to me, you’re just drawing a much finer point than Sutton was. Is it really that significant a difference? From what I can tell the prosecutor said he had immunity as long as he told the truth…and that’s exactly what Sutton says too.
That’s what I would have heard as a juror, too.
[The issue is: did he get “use” immunity, meaning only that they can’t use his statements against him, or “transactional” immunity, meaning he can’t be prosecuted for any crime he told law enforcement about. The latter is much broader in theory. Sutton said Aldrete had only the former (use immunity). Kanof told the judge he had the latter (transactional immunity).
Imagine that a videotape emerges that proves Aldrete ran drugs that day. Imagine that the tape is so good that you wouldn’t need Aldrete’s statements to prosecute him; just authenticate the tape and the case is won. Sutton says they could still go after him, because he has only “use” immunity. Wrong. They can’t. He told them about the smuggling and can’t be prosecuted for it, period — because he has *transactional* immunity for what he did that one day that he told them about truthfully. — P]
Dwilkers (4f4ebf) — 2/14/2007 @ 6:28 amOK thanks Patterico I get it. I’m wondering why Sutton made that statement then.
Still, I’ll repeat that as a juror, this distinction would have mattered little. I have been on 3 federal juries, 1 civil and 2 criminal. What I would have heard is that this guy had been given immunity for his testimony. Duly noted.
(In fact, the longer the defense wasted time beyond making this clear the more PO’d I’d have been. That’s been the case with each jury I served on BTW, hardly anything irritates a group of normal people that have been called for that duty than having some lawyer waste their time repeating stuff like this. Say it once. Repeat it to make it clear, raise your voice, be incredulous or whatever, then move on.)
What would have mattered was the overall narrative, what we could figure out happened even considering this guy’s contributions as of dubious credibility.
Dwilkers (4f4ebf) — 2/14/2007 @ 7:29 amGo look at the first 12 pages here. Mary Stillinger argues to the court that Aldrete-Davila should be granted full testimonial immunity so that he is safe telling the entire truth. It appears to me that Aldrete-Davila may not have had immunity for pointing a gun at law enforcement or for testimony regarding other drug dealings.
This raised the question in my mind as to whether or not the government maintained some threat over the head of Aldrete-Davila that may have impacted his testimony. At least, that seems to be the argument of Stillinger in the first 12 pages of the document I just linked above.
Jerri Lynn Ward (d7ff57) — 2/14/2007 @ 9:45 amRegarding the immunity, if you go here,(the first 16 pages) you will see that Mary Stillinger argued that Aldrete-Ramos should be given full testimonial immunity. It appears to me that Stillinger believed that Aldrete-Davila could, under the immunity terms, still be prosecuted for pointing a weapon at the agents and other drug related activities. She felt that, as a result of the limitations on the immunity, Aldrete-Davila was unmotivated to tell the whole truth.
Jerri Lynn Ward (d7ff57) — 2/14/2007 @ 10:15 amFrom what I have heard, the “poor guy” that got shot was caught after that incident (and before the trial) smuggling more drugs into the country, and that it was removed from his record completely so they wouldn’t lose the witness, and that someone (can’t recall if it was Sutton or another US attorney) was a childhood friend of the “victim” (some might call him a “suspect”).
Those two facts are amongst the most troubling things, should they in fact turn out to be true.
Scott Jacobs (a1de9d) — 2/14/2007 @ 7:33 pmI’ve read most of it. The most interesting stuff is the conversations with the lawyers and judge away from the jury.
The dirty judge was doing everything in her power to get these guys prosecuted. She wouldn’t allow any testimony about Davila’s subsequent drug bust, even as there were reports that Davila only transported drugs just that one time because he needed money for his poor momma’s doctor bills.
She wouldn’t allow any testimony about how dangerous that area was. That the area was known to be where lots of drugs came through.
The entire investigation was set into motion on the premise that this guy was shot when he was minding his own business just crossing the border, on foot, from Mexico into the US. After the witch hunt for the shooter was in full swing, it was discovered that Davila was lying and was actually smuggling drugs and leading border patrol on a high speed chase.
Just about every “fact” from Johnny Sutton’s “fact sheet” has been shown to be a deception at this point.
Q:And, when you’re running towards this location, what were you thinking at that point in time?
A:Well, I’m just covering my head. And I’m thinking that, even though they are shooting bullets at me, I don’t think they’re going to shoot to kill.
And Sutton’s fact sheet wanted us to believe that Davila ran because he felt his life was being threatened when actually he fought off Compean and made a dash for the border believing that they ultimately wouldn’t do what was necessary to stop him.
His hands were “raised” but not in a surrender posture but like a wrestler approaching his opponent, so he could block the gun away and run. The witnesses for the government even admit that. Another Sutton deception
Another Sutton lie, of many, is they left him there to die when they could have walked over to arrest him. Davila admits at one point during the testimony that he doesn’t go down until he’s in the Rio Grande ( Rio Bravo ), which is the border line. Davila’s smuggler buddies are at the scene at this time, just across the river in Mexico, and it would have been crazy for the agents to walk over there and get in a cross river shootout.
I have to honestly say that I have a bad gut feeling about how the shooting went down. Compean starts shooting at the ground near Davila to make him give up and stop running. Ramos hears the shots, not knowing who is doing the shooting but assuming that Compean wouldn’t be shooting at Davila unless there was a threat, he gets to the scene and fires a bullet at Davila, hitting him just before he gets to the Rio Grande.
I think agents made up the story about the gun because they felt like they’d be in worse trouble if they told the truth. And no, I don’t think they should have been prosecuted for a mistake. Davila was the cause of the mistake and definitely had it coming.
J Curtis (d21251) — 2/14/2007 @ 8:33 pmCitations would be helpful.
Patterico (a8fa4a) — 2/14/2007 @ 8:39 pmStillinger definitely wanted the confusing “hybrid” immunity agreement translated as being a wide ranging testimonial immunity so that she would be entitled to bring up Davila’s other drug bust, which the judge would have had to let her do.
Davila had the most generous immunity agreement ever seen. He could lie and get caught repeatedly and refuse to answer anything and he could protect anyone he wanted to by refusing to divulge information, even though the immunity agreement specifically says he can’t do that, with never any consequences at all.
And the government admits ( out of jury earshot ) that Davila was busted again but then they let him return to Mexico and admit they have no way of making him return if he doesn’t want to so it should be obvious that he’s even been given immunity for that second drug bust which came about 8 months after the first and 7 months after the immunity agreement had been signed.
[Citation? — P]
J Curtis (d21251) — 2/14/2007 @ 10:29 pm“Davila had the most generous immunity agreement ever seen.”
Do you mean in practice or in reality? I thought, perhaps, the government was holding back some immunity in order to prevent him from testifying to some aspects by holding the prospect of prosecution over his head.
I’m not a criminal attorney, so I was just guessing based on what it looks like to me.
Jerri Lynn Ward (9f83e6) — 2/15/2007 @ 5:47 amDavila is a registered voter. He had a local crossing card since he was a child ( which he lost ). I think Davila is a US citizen by birth. He probably has dual citizenship. His mother probably crossed the border to squirt him out at a US hospital. Vol VIII
J Curtis (d21251) — 2/15/2007 @ 9:11 amThat would be volume 8 pg56. Rene Sanchez seems to have the same sort of citizenship, born in El Paso and raised across the border in Mexico, etc.
Davila is consistantly called a “Mexican National” by the prosecution so that he doesn’t have to face the same justice that you or I would.
A US citizen trying to escape to Mexico with a million dollars worth of dope. Try it.
J Curtis (d21251) — 2/15/2007 @ 9:21 am[…] Border Patrol Transcripts — Volume IBorder Patrol Shooting Trial Transcripts AvailableUnion calls for border agents’ pardon The largest union for federal employees has called for the release of two U.S. Border Patrol agents imprisoned for shooting a Mexican drug courier. […]
Headline Summaries: Border Security at Traction Control (9f9139) — 2/22/2007 @ 7:18 pm