Will Bush commuted criminals Ramos and Compean profit from their crime with a book deal?

i don't think they was pardoned..sentence commuted if i read-heard the news correctly.

when i wrote the q, there were sources reporting that used BOTH terms, commuted & pardoned. but you are correct, the sentence was commuted.

but we're not betting on that portion of the Q, it simply was a short way to refer to the two and it's stated in the background that it was a commutation.

the Q speaks to the book deal.

even now, googling pardons gets you their story. "The final Bush Pardons":
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/19/ED4815D4SF.DTL

for the purposes of this q, this shouldn't be a big deal.

FWIW, I consider neither Ramos nor Compean to be patriots; rather, they're a couple of convicted criminals who managed to convince enough folks on both sides of the aisle that they were justified in doing what they did, though a jury of 12--the cornerstone of our judicial system--says they weren't. Bush went into Iraq on false pretenses, and only after the fact tried to change his words to say, "It was all about freedom for the Irai people!", so I can understand his commuting this sentence. To him and his crew, any action can be justified, no matter how wrong or unconstitutional or un-American it is. Torture? Fine! Shooting unarmed folks? Great! Killing thousands of Iraqi civilians? Why, that's just peachy keen!

But his administration is gone today, and good thing: this country won't long survive if law enforcement officials and/or military personnel are allowed to simply do whatever they want, whenever they want...

The horrors of the Bush years will live on in far too many peoples minds.

You can't undo torture, murder, environmental damage, DU contamination of people and places, a home that was lost to foreclosure, an outsourced job to name of few of his accomplishements.

But today we look forward with hope we can eventually restore as much as possible.

These two may write a book. But the operative words here are "Profit from their crime."

Look up "Son of Sam laws" and you'll see that convicted felons usually cannot do this for personal gain. Courts have found on many occasions that any proceeds from book sales must go to the victims or a victim's rights fund.

So, if they write a book which does not allow them a profit, how will this settle? I don't think there is enough social and literary merit here to skirt the Supreme Court rulings.

If they can profit from it, they will do it. They've collected over 500,000 bucks already because people keep donating to these "poor families" Guess what....it's been 4 years and these wives haven't once tried to go out and find jobs...instead they are taking handouts and then crying that it's still not enough. Believe me, there is way more to this than most people know about.

Of course there's way more to this than people know ... and way more than people think. Why should Bush have had the right to overturn a federal jury decision made on evidence gathered by Homeland Security, a quasi-fourth branch of government that he created? If our ex-President was so bitchy about activist judges meddling with the executive branch, why doesn't he have a problem with presidents meddling in the judicial branch? Basic civics. Look up DHS's full report on this to see how filthy these two border patrol agents are.

Hey drizelnet, here I go again:

Perhaps once these scumbags are released, some good ole fashioned vigilante type justice will prevail.

buckeyetom has a good point, but it could use some research. Once their sentence has been commuted, why should the same rules about profiting still apply? Is there a court ruling on that?

maybe destry can answer that...he's a lawyer.

I have asked destry to determine whether they can legally profit from a book.

My opinion here is the Q is more about them writing the book than what they get for it, so I'd just have somebody do a 'tiny, little editing job' (perhaps lesley is up to this) to change to 'will they get a book deal'.

But if that's a problem we will just void the Q.

I believe it's illegal to profit from crimes for which you've been convicted. These two scumbags are still convicted criminals, they just had their sentence commuted by a not-yet-convicted criminal president. You know, people get all bitchy about Guatemalans and Mexicans coming into the country. Couldn't we deport these two a-holes to wherever their ancestors came from? It's the same idea. The only difference is the majority of immigrants, legal or illegal, don't fire Gloks at unarmed people.

I think it's illegal to profit from a crime as well, J. But I wrote this Q just as the news was breaking and the first article I read had used the word 'pardoned'...in fact, that was the word originally used in the title before it was changed by Jen (see info in action history).

So, while we were hashing out changes it was sort of overlooked that anything less than a pardon might bar them from 'writing a book for profit' and I do apologize for this.

I really want the Q to stand....so I am hoping that when destry gets his messages he will give us an assist on legality and suggest how we proceed.

Wasn't meant as a slam. I'm positive these worms will find a way to get their records expunged. Having that nice letter from Bush won't hurt. Some judge just has to wait until the press stops paying attention. Once that gets done, there will be a book and a movie.

Didn't take it as a slam J...we have reason to question this. I also am certain some 'movie of the week' will happen as well...it's just can they PROFIT that's the issue for the Q.

Am hoping Destry can work this out for us.

Hey....I'd forgotten bout this. We still need Destry's expertise here.

I have given my input to Ryan the category editor for General and will let him do as he wishes with the market. I can appreciate how difficult it is to write a question when the news was still breaking.

Thanks, destry, whatever the input was. I'm hoping we can simply amend the title again as the options center around whether a book is written or not as opposed to how much they'd make. Suppose time will tell.

If this gets voided it's going to be like the 4th or 5th void I've had in 2 days or less. I feel jinxed.