Bush Issues Commutations For Ex-border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean

Outgoing US President George W. Bush has issued commutations for two former U.S. Border Patrol agents convicted in 2006 of shooting an illegal alien who was smuggling drugs.

Ramos and Compean were sentenced to 11 and 12 years respectively for shooting Osvaldo Aldrete Davila in the buttocks while he was trying to flee along the Texas border. Davila admitted smuggling several hundred pounds of marijuana on the day he was shot and pleaded guilty last year to drug charges related to other smuggling attempts.

The prison sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean will now end on March 20.

“The president has reviewed the circumstances of this case as a whole and the conditions of confinement and believes the sentences they received are too harsh and that they, and their families, have suffered enough for their crimes,” said a senior administration official reported CNN.

The announcement gained bipartisan support.