Bush Commutes Sentences for Two Former Border Patrol Agents
President Bush commutes the sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, convicted of shooting a Mexican drug runner in 2005.


On his last full day in office, President Bush commuted the sentences of two former Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a Mexican drug runner in 2005.

The imprisonment of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean had sparked outcry from critics who said the two were just doing their jobs. They had been sentenced to 11- and 12-year sentences, respectively.

Their prison sentences will now expire on March 20 of this year.

The two were sentenced in connection with the shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, who was shot in the buttocks while trying to flee along the Texas border. He admitted smuggling several hundred pounds of marijuana on the day he was shot and pleaded guilty last year to drug charges related to two other smuggling attempts.

Bush has been cautious in his use of pardon powers, and particularly careful when it comes to commutations of prison terms. Where a pardon is an official forgiveness of a crime (typically requested at least five years after the completion of a prison term), a commutation is a reduction of sentence.

Before Monday, the outgoing president had granted 171 pardons and nine commutations. By comparison, President Clinton granted 396 pardons and 61 commutations, many on his last day in office. President Reagan granted 393 pardons and 13 commutations.

Labels: border control, Border Patrol, Ignacio Ramos, illegal immigration, Jose Alonso Compean, politics, President George W. Bush