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View Full Version : Supreme Court punts on cross-border shooting, two immigration cases




Suzanimal
06-26-2017, 11:50 AM
WASHINGTON -- The family of a Mexican boy shot and killed from across the border by a U.S. Border Patrol agent deserves another day in court, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The decision was a setback for the government, which had won a lower court decision that barred the family from seeking damages in court. The justices ruled that the Border Patrol officer may not qualify for immunity and asked the federal appeals court to decide on other issues.

"The facts alleged in the complaint depict a disturbing incident resulting in a heartbreaking loss of life," the court said in an unsigned opinion. "Whether petitioners may recover damages for that loss in this suit depends on questions that are best answered by the Court of Appeals."

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The cross-border shooting case was closely watched in part because it called attention to President Trump's desire to build a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, which has been the scene of illegal immigration, drug smuggling and hundreds of incidents involving deadly force.

The decision followed a contentious oral argument in February in which the justices appeared evenly divided on whether the 15-year-old lacked constitutional protection because he was inside Mexico when shot, as lower courts had ruled.

But the court's liberal wing insisted that Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereca's parents can pursue legal action because the shooting occurred in the United States, even though the bullet crossed an invisible border running along the dry river bed of the Rio Grande.

Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, arguing that the boy should be covered by the 4th Amendment's guarantee of security even though he was across the border when shot. Justice Clarence Thomas also dissented, but he would have upheld the lower court's ruling against the boy's family.

Border Patrol agent Jesus Mesa stood in El Paso, Texas, when he fired the shot that hit Hernández in the head in 2010, killing him instantly. His lawyer, Randolph Ortega, warned the court in February that a ruling in the boy's favor would "plunge the lower courts into a sea of uncertainty," noting warily: "Wars have been fought to establish borders."

But the family's lawyer, Robert Hilliard, told the justices that six Mexican citizens have died as a result of 10 cross-border shootings, only to be left without any legal remedy because the Constitution "turns off at the border."

The family's lawyers say Hernández was playing with three friends in the 33-foot-wide concrete culvert separating El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Mesa's lawyers say he responded to a group of suspected illegal aliens throwing rocks at Border Patrol agents. Cellphone videos appeared to show that Hernández was hiding beneath a train trestle when he was shot in the head.

Lower courts have said that because Hernández was a Mexican citizen in Mexico, he lacked constitutional protection against unreasonable use of deadly force under the 4th Amendment, as well as due process rights under the 5th Amendment. And while a Mexican court could have tried Mesa there, the U.S. government refused extradition.

A 2013 investigation by The Arizona Republic found that Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers killed at least 42 people — including at least 13 Americans — in an eight-year period. At the time, none of the agents or officers responsible were publicly known to have faced consequences.

During oral argument, Breyer and Justice Elena Kagan stressed the unique nature of the incident, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested there should be some type of civil remedy available to the family. But the court's conservative justices said no such constitutional claim for damages against a federal official has been allowed for almost 30 years.

Chief Justice John Roberts had warned that allowing the case to go forward could lead to other claims by foreign nationals outside the U.S., such as in cases of drone strikes.

The Mexican government noted in court papers that many of its residents "spend much of their day within shooting distance" of Border Patrol agents. “There is no bright line at the border beyond which all constitutional rights cease,” it argued.

To back up its claim, the Mexican government cited a 2008 Supreme Court case that granted detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the right to sue federal agents. The Justice Department argued in response that the detention facility was under U.S. control, while Hernández was inside Mexico.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/26/supreme-court-mexican-family-cross-border-shooting/101594536/

PierzStyx
06-26-2017, 02:20 PM
>Border Patrol agent Jesus Mesa stood in El Paso, Texas, when he fired the shot that hit Hernández in the head in 2010, killing him instantly. His lawyer, Randolph Ortega, warned the court in February that a ruling in the boy's favor would "plunge the lower courts into a sea of uncertainty," noting warily: "Wars have been fought to establish borders."

And every border is nothing more than where some national warlord's murder machine ran out of steam.

>But the family's lawyer, Robert Hilliard, told the justices that six Mexican citizens have died as a result of 10 cross-border shootings, only to be left without any legal remedy because the Constitution "turns off at the border."

So the government can just murder its way through people, rape, blunder, and destroy but as long as it doesn't happen in the US it is legal? Bullcrap. The Constitution is, supposedly, founded on the philosophy that the Declaration espouses, which notes that all men are created equal by their Creator. Human rights neither begin nor end at borders.

>The family's lawyers say Hernández was playing with three friends in the 33-foot-wide concrete culvert separating El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Mesa's lawyers say he responded to a group of suspected illegal aliens throwing rocks at Border Patrol agents. Cellphone videos appeared to show that Hernández was hiding beneath a train trestle when he was shot in the head.

This is what happens when you give government police state thugs blanket permission to use violence, they have no problem murdering children. And you can't exactly claim an "accident" here either. Someone running and hiding isn't actively trying to hurt or harm you. Whipping your gun out and gunning them down is murder. The fact that these thugs will be protected by the state instead of standing trial for their crimes is just another piece of evidence of the corruption of the State. Wergild would be a better system than this stupid crap we have now.