U. S. Appeals Court Judge E. Grady Jolly astutely recognizes and correctly acknowledges the fact that the prosecution of former Border Patrol Agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, “got out of hand.”  The resulting consequences of their prosecution resulted in  overbearing and unwarranted sentences of 11- and 12- year prison terms.  
U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton argues the sentences were in line with sentencing guidelines that were set by Congress.  However, the fact remains that those sentences would not have been imposed if the particular charges—specifically, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relations to a crime of violence and for a civil rights violations—had not been brought against the agents.  Ramos and Compean were law enforcement officers doing their job, albeit a difficult one, and the prosecution seemingly was, in fact, overzealous in their prosecution under the federal statute.

Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila was portrayed as a “victim” though he was in this country illegally and was smuggling a tremendous amount of drugs over the border.  Moreover, he did not comply with the agents’ demands, and they felt threatened and feared for their lives as a result of his failure to obey their orders. Consequently, Aldrete-Davila's was fired upon by one of the agents which resulted in him being hit in the buttocks.  Subsequent to this encounter, Aldrete-Davila was granted immunity to testify against the agents. 

Though U. S. Attorney Johnny Sutton acknowledges the sentences were high and maintains that the agents were culpable of committing violations of the law for which a jury found them guilty, he must not fail to understand that the result of all that is because of the initial charges that were levied in the first place.  Even if the agents had done something improper, it likely did not have to rise to the level of indictment and prosecution that it did.

Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila is, by no means, an innocent so-called “victim.”  The extreme sentences that have been levied against these two agents are a miscarriage of justice.  Hopefully, the other judges, along with Judge Jolly, will have the intrinsic common sense, keen intelligence, and solid backbone to do the right thing and issue an appropriate ruling that throws out these outrageous convictions that stemmed from charges that should never have been levied in the first place.