What Happened To Justice In America?

by Dana Rohrabacher - August 4th, 2008 - Human Events

What happened to justice in America? It certainly wasn’t served on July 28 when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the unjust convictions of Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. As it stands today, these two brave border protectors must now serve out their full 10-plus-year sentences for shooting and wounding a Mexican drug smuggler they encountered while he was carrying a million-dollar payload of narcotics along the Southern border in Texas. What started off as simple procedural mistakes by the agents has turned into an unimaginable travesty of justice unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my 30 years in Washington, D.C.

It’s difficult to reconcile why U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton would choose to seek out drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, in Mexico to offer him immunity, unconditional border-crossing cards and free medical care in exchange for his testimony against the border agents. Ramos and Compean did not wake up the morning of Feb.17, 2005, with the intention of committing a crime, unlike the illegal alien drug-smuggling “victim.” They put on their uniforms, strapped their weapons around their waists and pinned on their badges, as they had for five and 10 years respectively, with the intention of patrolling our borders to protect America.

The answer to the title of this article is obvious though not simple. Justice in America has become the rule of judges to replace the rule of law. Our system is a system easily abused by aggressive corrupt prosecutors, like Mike Nifong in the Duke situation, and Johnny Sutton in this case. Both care little for anything but political power. Nifong got away with his abuse many times before he stepped over the line and got caught. The system protects these powerful and abusive egomaniacs. Justice is not the goal of our system.

A verdict under the rules, without regard for actual innocence or guilt, is all our system seeks. That is not what the people of America think our system is supposed to be. However that too is rapidly changing. As an example, you need only look at this case:

The jury was never told Davila was more than a one-time offender; smuggled drugs while under immunity, was in possession of a border-crossing card our government gave him four months before testifying against Ramos and Compean and that he potentially violated his immunity agreement by not giving up any information about the cartel he was working for. Sutton’s office was well aware of these facts. It successfully petitioned the trial judge to seal that information from the jury and, to the chagrin of most reasonable people, the appellate court ruled that the protection of the Davila’s 5th Amendment rights outweighed the relevancy of his additional smuggling activities.

This is typical of the modern abuse of justice in American courts. Little concern is actually given for the truth in a case. It is all a game. As more and more injustice becomes the standard, fewer and fewer Americans maintain any respect for the tyrants who rule our court system. Maybe Sutton will get his own justice someday. For now he is proudly strutting his win in this case. The appeals court is now complicit in this injustice.