Time: Fri Aug 15 19:49:43 1997
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	Fri, 15 Aug 1997 19:41:24 -0700 (MST)
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	Fri, 15 Aug 1997 19:39:45 -0700 (MST)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 19:38:36 -0700
To: sdykstra@erols.com
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: Hernandez

The state grand juries are also being
convened pursuant to unconstitutional
juror and voter registrant statutes.

/s/ Paul Mitchell
http://www.supremelaw.com

copy:  Supreme Law School



At 06:39 PM 8/15/97 -0700, you wrote:
>I thought the examiner determined that this guy was shot in the back.
>What gives??
>
>Scott
>
>03:21 PM ET 08/15/97
>
>Marine's non-indictment angers dead teen's friends
>
>
>            By Jodi Bizar
>            EL PASO, Texas (Reuter) - Angry friends of a Texas teen-ager
>
>shot dead by a U.S. Marine said on Friday a decision not to
>indict the Marine showed the military was free to act with
>impunity on the U.S.-Mexico border.
>            Marine Cpl. Clemente Banuelos shot Esequiel Hernandez, 18,
>during an anti-narcotics border surveillance mission on May 20
>but escaped murder charges Thursday when a grand jury in Marfa,
>Texas, decided against an indictment.
>            Military officials successfully argued that Hernandez, who
>was herding goats, had shot at a group of four Marines and
>Banuelos, 22, opened fire because Hernandez was raising his
>rifle to shoot again.
>            The decision not to lay charges outraged residents of
>Redford, the tiny Rio Grande border town where Hernandez, a U.S.
>citizen of Mexican descent, attended high school and herded his
>family's goats every afternoon.
>            They say there is no way he would have deliberately opened
>fire with his old .22 caliber rifle on anyone, much less a group
>of heavily armed Marines, and believe justice has not been
>served.
>            ``We are not out for vengeance but we think he (Banuelos)
>should have been held accountable in some way,'' Father Melvin
>LaFollette, a Redford resident and former Episcopal minister,
>said on Friday.
>            ``This is part of a pattern of immunity that certain
>elements of the security forces have. That's immunity,'' said
>Benito Juarez, coordinator of the Immigration and Refugee
>Coalition in Houston.
>            Others said Marines should never have been sent into
>civilian areas to boost the war on drugs. ``It puts us all in
>danger. It could have been any one of us,'' Enrique Madrid,
>another Redford resident, said.
>            After the shooting, the Pentagon suspended its military
>border patrols and is currently reviewing the terms of its
>participation in the anti-narcotics effort.
>            Civic groups that lined up behind Hernandez's family in the
>case complained that one member of the grand jury was an active
>official of the Border Patrol, the agency in charge of the
>anti-narcotics mission that ended with the teen's death.
>            They want a court of inquiry to investigate the grand jury
>probe, and said Friday they would look at the possibility of
>charges being filed against Banuelos' superiors, who allegedly
>issued the order to open fire on Hernandez.
>            LaFollette also criticized Presidio County District Attorney
>
>Albert Valadez, who failed to win an indictment.
>            ``If he had wanted an indictment he would have gotten one.
>He was just trying to weasle out of it,'' LaFollette said.
>            Hernandez's family was not available for comment on Friday.
>Their attorney has urged them to stay quiet because they are
>preparing a civil lawsuit for damages.
>            The fact that Banuelos, like Hernandez, is a Mexican
>American helped limit racial divisions in the case, but some
>border groups still saw race as a factor.
>            ``They wouldn't carry out this type of military operation on
>
>the border with Canada so, yes, there is a certain level of
>racism in this,'' Juarez said Friday.
>            Jack Zimmermann, Banuelos' attorney, said Thursday that his
>client fired only because his fellow Marines were in serious
>danger. He also said Hernandez, an Hispanic teen-ager carrying a
>rifle in open country near the border, had appeared to ``fit the
>description of a drug trafficker''.
>         ^REUTER@
>
>
>
>
>

========================================================================
Paul Andrew Mitchell                 : Counselor at Law, federal witness
B.A., Political Science, UCLA;  M.S., Public Administration, U.C. Irvine

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