15-03-2009, 04:01 AM
(This post was last modified: 15-03-2009, 04:50 AM by Tosh Plumlee.)
Cant Edit last post... sorry: Here is the article-- Link to court proceedings below:
The House of Death Is Now in the Obama Administration’s Court
Posted by Bill Conroy - March 13, 2009 at 11:51 pm U.S. Appeals Court Hearing Raises Unsettling Questions "Under Color of Law”
The informant at the center of the House of Death carnage was the subject of a high-stakes court hearing this past Tuesday, March 10.
The informant’s attorney, Jodilyn Goodwin, appeared before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, arguing her client’s case, fighting to prevent his deportation to Mexico, where the informant claims he will become another victim of the House of Death.
The recent hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Paul, Minn., is particularly noteworthy because it provides us with a first insight into how the Obama Justice Department views the informant’s case, and by extension, the House of Death murders and the subsequent cover-up of the U.S. government’s complicity in those murders.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initiated deportation proceedings against the informant, Guillermo E. Ramirez Peyro, in 2005 and his case has been tied up in the courts ever since — with an immigration judge twice ruling in favor of granting him deferral from deportation under the United Nations Convention Against Torture and the Justice Department-controlled Board of Immigration Appeals twice ruling against Ramirez Peyro.
Ramirez Peyro, a former Mexican law enforcer, argues that if returned to Mexico, he will be tortured and murdered with the assistance of Mexican officials, specifically law enforcers, as a payback for his snitching on drug-cartel activities.
According to the government's attorney, Tiffanny Walters Kleinert, the facts of the case, as established by the immigration judge who heard the case originally, are not in dispute and the government does not contest that Ramirez Peyro will, in all likelihood, be murdered, if deported to Mexico, probably with the assistance of Mexican law enforcers.
However, in a twist that seems out of sync with the human rights rhetoric coming out of the Obama White House, Kleinert also argues before the Appeals Court that even though Ramirez Peyro faces an almost-certain gruesome death if returned to Mexico, he is not entitled to relief from the court under the Convention Against Torture — which prohibits the U.S. from deporting an individual to a country where he faces imminent risk of being tortured by individuals acting on behalf of the government.
Kleinert argues that even if Mexican law enforcers participate in Ramirez Peyro’s murder, as expected, and as they did with the victims of the House of Death, they would not be acting officially "under color of law."
Kleinert contends that because the Mexican government, and its president, Felipe Calderon, do not officially condone such corruption and are allegedly working to eliminate it, then any participation by Mexican government officials, including law enforcers, in Ramirez Peyro's expected murder would not constitute a homicide “under color of law.". In other words, because any Mexican law enforcer (or soldier) involved in torturing and killing Ramirez Peyro would be acting without the “official” permission of the Mexican government, Ramirez Peyro is precluded, according to Kleinert's argument, from seeking protection under the Convention Against Torture.
If the U.S. Court of Appeals agrees with Kleinert, then the U.S. government will provide Ramirez Peyro with a one-way ticket to Mexico — where even the attorney representing the U.S. government in this case agrees he will most likely face the same fate as the House of Death murder victims — whose corpses were found buried in the backyard of a middle-class home in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in various states of decay, covered in lime ("milk" in narco-trafficker parlance) to speed decomposition.
“When you see them doing this, then the fact there's a cover up of the other murders [in the House of Death] should come as no surprise,” says former DEA Special Agent in Charge Sandalio Gonzalez, who blew the whistle on the U.S. government’s complicity in the House of Death murders. “There is no Department of Justice. There is a government law firm that defends government officials, and in this case, they're going the extra step. They're trying to get rid of the witness [Ramirez Peyro]. Wow!”
Narco News sent an e-mail to the Department of Justice, seeking comment on Ramirez Peyro’s case, just to assure that the new Attorney General, Eric Holder, is on board with the “under color of law” reasoning.
From the e-mail:
The House of Death murders, which occurred between August 2003 and mid-January 2004, took place in Juarez under the watch of the Bush administration, as did the cover-up of the U.S. government’s complicity in those murders — orchestrated at the highest levels of the Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). [See link]
The informant, Ramirez Peyro, a former Mexican police officer, while working as an informant for ICE, assisted a cell of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes drug organization in carrying out those murders. That cell was headed by an individual named Heriberto Santillan-Tabares, who was eventually arrested in the U.S. on murder and drug-trafficking charges, but later negotiated a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney overseeing the case, Johnny Sutton. The plea bargain resulted in the murder charges against Santillan being dropped, and he was handed a 25-year prison sentence.
After participating in the first murder and informing his ICE handlers of that fact, the informant Ramirez Peyro was authorized by ICE and the Department of Justice, including Sutton’s office, to continue on his mission — resulting in at least 11 more murders and the near assassination of a DEA agent and his family.
This all played out despite the fact that U.S. Attorney Sutton (a “dear friend” of former President Bush who remains in office as of now under the Obama administration) had enough evidence to close out the investigation against Santillan several months prior to the first House of Death murder. Instead, Sutton chose to allow the informant to continue his bloody work — for which the U.S. government paid Ramirez Peyro some $220,000.
And when Gonzalez, at the time the chief of DEA’s office in El Paso, Texas, sought to expose the U.S. government’s complicity in the needless carnage, via a memo drafted and delivered to Sutton in February 2004, rather than investigate the charges, U.S. Attorney Sutton chose instead to use his connections within the Department of Justice to retaliate against the whistleblower and assure his message was silenced. And to this day, the cover-up continues — with the silencing of the informant Ramirez Peyro one of the few remaining loose strings.
The hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals this past Tuesday, March 10, is the most recent development in the case, which has been pending in the U.S. immigration court system since 2005 (while Ramirez Peyro sits in prison “locked up in solitary protective custody,” according to his attorney, Goodwin). An immigration judge has twice ruled that Ramirez Peyro should be allowed to stay in the U.S. under the Convention Against Torture. And twice, the DOJ-controlled Board of Immigration Appeals has reversed the immigration judge’s rulings.
The panel of three U.S. Court of Appeals judges who heard arguments in Ramirez Peyro’s case earlier this week will issue a decision in the coming weeks or months. A number of legal outcomes are possible for Ramirez Peyro in the short-term, but ultimately, and likely sooner rather than later, the courts will decided if he can be set free to live in a neighborhood near you.
In the alternative, the court also could set the wheels in motion for Ramirez Peyro to become a dead man walking — waiting on his ticket to be punched permanently across the border with the assistance of Mexican officials and law enforcers who, somehow, will be able to snuff out his life without acting “under color of law.”
If there is any indication as to how the U.S. Court of Appeals’ judges view the U.S. government’s argument in this case, the following question raised during the March 10 hearing by Judge Michael J. Melloy — directed at Kleinert — could be that oracle:
Guillermo E. Ramirez-Peyro vs. Eric H. Holder, Jr.
[appeals court case No. 08-2657]
Hearing before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, St. Paul, Minn., Tuesday, March 10, 2009, beginning at 9 a.m.
Judges
Diana E. Murphy
Michael J. Melloy
Bobby E. Shepherd
Attorneys
For Ramirez Peyro: Jodilyn Marie Goodwin
For the U.S. government: Tiffany Walters Kleinert,
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2009/03/house-death-now-obama-administration%E2%80%99s-court
The House of Death Is Now in the Obama Administration’s Court
Posted by Bill Conroy - March 13, 2009 at 11:51 pm U.S. Appeals Court Hearing Raises Unsettling Questions "Under Color of Law”
The informant at the center of the House of Death carnage was the subject of a high-stakes court hearing this past Tuesday, March 10.
The informant’s attorney, Jodilyn Goodwin, appeared before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, arguing her client’s case, fighting to prevent his deportation to Mexico, where the informant claims he will become another victim of the House of Death.
The recent hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Paul, Minn., is particularly noteworthy because it provides us with a first insight into how the Obama Justice Department views the informant’s case, and by extension, the House of Death murders and the subsequent cover-up of the U.S. government’s complicity in those murders.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initiated deportation proceedings against the informant, Guillermo E. Ramirez Peyro, in 2005 and his case has been tied up in the courts ever since — with an immigration judge twice ruling in favor of granting him deferral from deportation under the United Nations Convention Against Torture and the Justice Department-controlled Board of Immigration Appeals twice ruling against Ramirez Peyro.
Ramirez Peyro, a former Mexican law enforcer, argues that if returned to Mexico, he will be tortured and murdered with the assistance of Mexican officials, specifically law enforcers, as a payback for his snitching on drug-cartel activities.
According to the government's attorney, Tiffanny Walters Kleinert, the facts of the case, as established by the immigration judge who heard the case originally, are not in dispute and the government does not contest that Ramirez Peyro will, in all likelihood, be murdered, if deported to Mexico, probably with the assistance of Mexican law enforcers.
However, in a twist that seems out of sync with the human rights rhetoric coming out of the Obama White House, Kleinert also argues before the Appeals Court that even though Ramirez Peyro faces an almost-certain gruesome death if returned to Mexico, he is not entitled to relief from the court under the Convention Against Torture — which prohibits the U.S. from deporting an individual to a country where he faces imminent risk of being tortured by individuals acting on behalf of the government.
Kleinert argues that even if Mexican law enforcers participate in Ramirez Peyro’s murder, as expected, and as they did with the victims of the House of Death, they would not be acting officially "under color of law."
Kleinert contends that because the Mexican government, and its president, Felipe Calderon, do not officially condone such corruption and are allegedly working to eliminate it, then any participation by Mexican government officials, including law enforcers, in Ramirez Peyro's expected murder would not constitute a homicide “under color of law.". In other words, because any Mexican law enforcer (or soldier) involved in torturing and killing Ramirez Peyro would be acting without the “official” permission of the Mexican government, Ramirez Peyro is precluded, according to Kleinert's argument, from seeking protection under the Convention Against Torture.
If the U.S. Court of Appeals agrees with Kleinert, then the U.S. government will provide Ramirez Peyro with a one-way ticket to Mexico — where even the attorney representing the U.S. government in this case agrees he will most likely face the same fate as the House of Death murder victims — whose corpses were found buried in the backyard of a middle-class home in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in various states of decay, covered in lime ("milk" in narco-trafficker parlance) to speed decomposition.
“When you see them doing this, then the fact there's a cover up of the other murders [in the House of Death] should come as no surprise,” says former DEA Special Agent in Charge Sandalio Gonzalez, who blew the whistle on the U.S. government’s complicity in the House of Death murders. “There is no Department of Justice. There is a government law firm that defends government officials, and in this case, they're going the extra step. They're trying to get rid of the witness [Ramirez Peyro]. Wow!”
Narco News sent an e-mail to the Department of Justice, seeking comment on Ramirez Peyro’s case, just to assure that the new Attorney General, Eric Holder, is on board with the “under color of law” reasoning.
From the e-mail:
I am interested in confirming that a case now before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is, in fact, on the Attorney General's radar and that the position of the government's attorney (Tiffany Walters Kleinert) arguing that case is supported by the Attorney General.
As of press time, the Department of Justice had not responded to Narco News’ query.Bloodshed and Cover-up
The House of Death murders, which occurred between August 2003 and mid-January 2004, took place in Juarez under the watch of the Bush administration, as did the cover-up of the U.S. government’s complicity in those murders — orchestrated at the highest levels of the Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). [See link]
The informant, Ramirez Peyro, a former Mexican police officer, while working as an informant for ICE, assisted a cell of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes drug organization in carrying out those murders. That cell was headed by an individual named Heriberto Santillan-Tabares, who was eventually arrested in the U.S. on murder and drug-trafficking charges, but later negotiated a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney overseeing the case, Johnny Sutton. The plea bargain resulted in the murder charges against Santillan being dropped, and he was handed a 25-year prison sentence.
After participating in the first murder and informing his ICE handlers of that fact, the informant Ramirez Peyro was authorized by ICE and the Department of Justice, including Sutton’s office, to continue on his mission — resulting in at least 11 more murders and the near assassination of a DEA agent and his family.
This all played out despite the fact that U.S. Attorney Sutton (a “dear friend” of former President Bush who remains in office as of now under the Obama administration) had enough evidence to close out the investigation against Santillan several months prior to the first House of Death murder. Instead, Sutton chose to allow the informant to continue his bloody work — for which the U.S. government paid Ramirez Peyro some $220,000.
And when Gonzalez, at the time the chief of DEA’s office in El Paso, Texas, sought to expose the U.S. government’s complicity in the needless carnage, via a memo drafted and delivered to Sutton in February 2004, rather than investigate the charges, U.S. Attorney Sutton chose instead to use his connections within the Department of Justice to retaliate against the whistleblower and assure his message was silenced. And to this day, the cover-up continues — with the silencing of the informant Ramirez Peyro one of the few remaining loose strings.
The hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals this past Tuesday, March 10, is the most recent development in the case, which has been pending in the U.S. immigration court system since 2005 (while Ramirez Peyro sits in prison “locked up in solitary protective custody,” according to his attorney, Goodwin). An immigration judge has twice ruled that Ramirez Peyro should be allowed to stay in the U.S. under the Convention Against Torture. And twice, the DOJ-controlled Board of Immigration Appeals has reversed the immigration judge’s rulings.
The panel of three U.S. Court of Appeals judges who heard arguments in Ramirez Peyro’s case earlier this week will issue a decision in the coming weeks or months. A number of legal outcomes are possible for Ramirez Peyro in the short-term, but ultimately, and likely sooner rather than later, the courts will decided if he can be set free to live in a neighborhood near you.
In the alternative, the court also could set the wheels in motion for Ramirez Peyro to become a dead man walking — waiting on his ticket to be punched permanently across the border with the assistance of Mexican officials and law enforcers who, somehow, will be able to snuff out his life without acting “under color of law.”
If there is any indication as to how the U.S. Court of Appeals’ judges view the U.S. government’s argument in this case, the following question raised during the March 10 hearing by Judge Michael J. Melloy — directed at Kleinert — could be that oracle:
Let me ask you a question. … Do you know going back to our own unfortunate history in civil rights, were police officers not prosecuted under actions taken under color of law when they would stop civil rights workers in the deep South and turn them over to the Ku Klux Klan or participate in murders? I’m thinking of the famous three murders in Mississippi where the police stopped the people under pretense of a speeding violation and then turned them over to the Klan. Do you know, were they prosecuted on the theory that they were performing their duties under color of law?
But you can judge for yourself, kind readers. The March 10 Appeals Court hearing can be heard at this link, or you can read it below, as transcribed by Narco News. The Players
Guillermo E. Ramirez-Peyro vs. Eric H. Holder, Jr.
[appeals court case No. 08-2657]
Hearing before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, St. Paul, Minn., Tuesday, March 10, 2009, beginning at 9 a.m.
Judges
Diana E. Murphy
Michael J. Melloy
Bobby E. Shepherd
Attorneys
For Ramirez Peyro: Jodilyn Marie Goodwin
For the U.S. government: Tiffany Walters Kleinert,
Court in Session (transcript copy of court)
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2009/03/house-death-now-obama-administration%E2%80%99s-court