A former Border Patrol agent's lengthy sentence for shooting a fleeing drug smuggler had been described as extreme by his supporters, but a federal judge showed no mercy Wednesday at the former agent's resentencing hearing in El Paso, Texas.
The judge upheld Jose Alonso Compean's original punishment and resentenced him to 10 years in prison for his conviction on a charge of using a weapon in the commission of a felony and another two years in prison for assault and other charges, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Compean's attorneys plan to turn to the Supreme Court for a review of the case. Bob Baskett, an attorney for Compean, did not immediately return a call for comment from FOXNews.com.
Compean, along with former agent Ignacio Ramos, was convicted in 2006 of shooting Osvaldo Adlrete Davila — an admitted, and now convicted, drug smuggler — and trying to cover up the shooting.
The 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans threw out some convictions against Ramos and Compean earlier this year, prompting Wednesday's new sentencing hearing. But the court upheld the majority of the case, including the weapons charge that brought a mandatory 10-year prison term.
"The simple truth of this case is that former Agents Compean and Ramos shot 15 times at an unarmed man who was running away from them and posed no threat," U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton said in a statement released following the 5th Circuit's September ruling. "They lied about what happened, covered up the shooting, and then proceeded to write up and file a false report."
Both men have been in prison since January 2007. Ramos, who originally was sentenced to 11 years and a day in prison, is scheduled to be resentenced in federal court in El Paso on Thursday.
The case against Compean and Ramos prompted a massive outcry from supporters of the former agents who argued that Sutton should have focused his office's efforts on prosecuting illegal immigrant Osvaldo Aldrete Davila for his drug-smuggling activities.
Several members of Congress, including Rep. Ted Poe, have asked President Bush to pardon the former agents, or at least commute their sentences.
"He's certainly still asking the president to consider this in his traditional end-of-term pardoning," said Deeann Thigpen, a spokeswoman for Poe, a Texas Republican.
U.S. presidents traditionally issue pardons and sentence commutations in the final days in office. So far, though, Bush has not indicated whether he's considering acting on the agents' requests, Thigpen said.
In January 2007, then-White House spokesman Tony Snow indicated that the Oval Office seemed to be in agreement with federal prosecutors.
"The facts of this case are such that I would invite everybody to take a full look at the documented record," Snow said then. "This is not the case of the United States saying, 'We are not going to support people who go after drug dealers.' Of course, we are. We think it's incumbent to go after drug dealers, and we also think that it's vitally important to make sure that we provide border security so our people are secure.
"We also believe that the people who are working to secure that border themselves obey the law."
Aldrete, who admitted smuggling several hundred pounds of marijuana on the day he was shot in 2005, pleaded guilty earlier this year to drug charges related to two smuggling attempts several months after he was shot in the buttocks while running away from Ramos and Compean. The same federal judge who sentenced the former agents ordered Aldrete to serve 9 1/2 years in prison.
Ramos and Compean argued during their trials that they shot Aldrete, whom they believed was armed, in self defense. Aldrete has denied having a weapon the day he was shot.
Compean told FOXNews.com last January that his family had "lost everything."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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