Last night I told you that the trial transcripts from that Ramos and Compean border patrol shooting case are available here.

I also read through the very short Volume I and gave you the interesting nuggets here, including the fact that shooting victim Aldrete had his urethra severed by the bullet.

Then I asked my loyal, longtime commenter DRJ to take over the task of reading through the transcripts and summarizing them.

DRJ is a perfect choice for this: patient, thorough, even-handed, and smart.

I have offered DRJ a blogging account for this purpose, but so far the analysis has come in comments. Because I want them to have the status of posts, I am publishing them here. What follows is DRJ’s analysis, from comments you can read here and here. Interspersed you will find commentary from me. Also, I am adding hyperlinks to the particular volumes of the transcripts, so you can follow along if you like.

I now turn it over to DRJ:

I 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.

PATTERICO ADDS: Refusing the stipulation was a savvy move on the part of defense counsel, if an obvious one. They want to throw that agreement in Aldrete’s face, in front of the jury.

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.)

PATTERICO ADDS: DRJ, for a non-lawyer, you catch on quickly. [UPDATE: My mistake. DRJ is a lawyer — just not a criminal lawyer. — P] Bruton is a U.S. Supreme Court case that addresses the Confrontation Clause issues that arise when two or more defendants are tried in front of a single jury, and the prosecution wishes to introduce an inculpatory statement made by one of them. It’s a very difficult area of the law, but the basic principle is that if one defendant’s statement inculpates the other, that creates a constitutional problem that can’t be solved with a simple instruction to the jury. The issue is way beyond the scope of this post, but the bottom line is that if Compean wrote out a statement in which he admitted that he thought Ramos was trying to kill Aldrete-Davila, that statement can’t be used against Ramos, because Ramos’s attorney has no chance to cross-examine Compean about the statement. The principle becomes moot if Compean takes the stand and Ramos’s attorney can cross-examine Compean. Make sense?

4. The parties agreed to the government’s production of unidentified documents described as Jencks’ material (p 27).

PATTERICO ADDS: This is a term used in federal practice, relating to the production of statements of witnesses at trial.

5. The Court tentatively denied a defense motion in limine to prohibit the government from referring to Aldrete-Davila as the victim (p 28).

PATTERICO ADDS: This should be denied — but based on Volume I, it doesn’t appear to place the defendants in much danger. Ms. Kanof, the prosecutor, appears more apt to refer to Mr. Aldrete-Davila as the “defendant” than as the “victim.”

Snarky on my part . . . but true.

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):

MS. RAMIREZ: And, Your Honor, I received the immunity agreement from Mr. Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, and there’s an unconditional parole document, I guess, in the Government’s file. I just want the Government to stipulate that Mr. Davila has not received any other advantages, promise from the Government, in exchange for his testimony for this trial.

MS. KANOF: Your Honor, so far, not even a glass of water. But when we do pretrial, and if he wants a Coke, we’ll probably get it for him.

THE COURT: All right. And so your response is no, I assume?

MR. GONZALEZ: That’s correct, Your Honor.”

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.

. . . .

Vol 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.

PATTERICO ADDS: I would be interested to hear more detail about the opening statements, but the evidence is really what matters.

Thanks to DRJ for taking this on. I’ll set up an account and e-mail you the details.

Good stuff so far.