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.

ICE Agent Likely Violated Agency Rules, Leaked Memo Shows

The arrest last fall of an undocumented immigrant in a Texas house of worship by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent has sparked a growing controversy that essentially pits the power of Caesar against the church.

The immigrant, 31-year-old Jose Juan Hernandez, who has lived in the United States since age 6, is not the ideal poster boy for such a moral crusade, given he has been deported three times previously and also has prior state convictions for attempted possession of a controlled substance and driving while intoxicated.

But in this case, it’s not Hernandez’ background, but rather the place of the arrest, a Texas church in Montgomery, Texas, located near Houston, that is fueling the outrage. There is nearly universally acceptance across human cultures that it is taboo to violate the perceived sanctity of a religious ceremony.

Iran/Contra whistleblower Celerino “Cele” Castillo III was scheduled to report to prison on March 5, but the power of justice has intervened on his behalf.

A federal judge in San Antonio, at a hearing held late last week, ruled that Castillo's report date to prison should be extended until July 20. The judge, W. Royal Furgeson Jr., issued his ruling over the objections of a federal prosecutor, who argued that Castillo should be sent to prison because he was a “danger to the community.”

The hearing was called by the judge to consider a motion to allow Castillo to remain free on bail through his appeal. The motion was filed by Castillo's current attorney, public defender Judy Fulmer Madewell.

In covering the drug war along the U.S./Mexican border over the past five years, I’ve discovered that there are two kinds of stories: the ones that only make sense on the surface and those that are layered with the complexity of reality.

The former, unfortunately, often serve as the whips wielded by interest groups seeking to cower politicians into promoting measures that further militarize the border. The latter, however, rarely get played beyond a single news cycle, if they make the news cycle at all.

But it is those complex stories, the ones that don’t make for easy talking points, that are always closer to the truth of the drug war — which like the border itself exists in a zone where the line between what is Mexico and what is the United States evaporates like a mirage as you move closer to it.

The conviction of Iran/Contra whistleblower Celerino “Cele” Castillo III late last year on federal charges of dealing in firearms without a license is beginning to look more and more like a travesty of justice.

Among the latest revelations in the case is the fact that Castillo was being represented by a lawyer who was in the process of having his bar license suspended for allegedly bilking clients out of money. On top of that, this same lawyer’s son was facing serious gun charges in another federal court in Texas at the same time he was representing Castillo.

Those facts on there own create a huge conflict of interest for that attorney in handling Castillo’s case, given that both situations would have made it extremely difficult for that lawyer to provide a vigorous defense for his client. In the back of his mind, the attorney had to worry about his future, and that of his son’s, should he run afoul of the prosecutor in Castillo’s case, according to attorneys and law enforcers who spoke with Narco News.

Earlier this week, the U.S. House of Representatives approved an amendment, advanced by a bipartisan duo of congressman, that essentially pastes in whole into the pending economic stimulus legislation the text of the previously stalled Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2007.

This unexpected, at least under-the-radar, move is like a cannon shot signaling the end of the nightmare world inhabited by whistleblowers under the Bush administration.

In the course of doing investigative reporting over the years for Narco News during the Bush era, I have followed the stories of numerous whistleblowers and watched helplessly as they were churned through a predictable path of career destruction at the hands of the Bush regime for their acts of “committing the truth.”

I’ve watched with great curiosity and yes, hope, the rise of Barack Obama to the highest seat of power in the land.

But as he took the oath of office today, Jan. 20, I reaffirmed again that my hope has never been projected on him. He seems like an honest, talented man who has chosen a career in an ancient profession reserved for the ambitious: politics. Now he’s gotten the ultimate quarterback nod in his profession. Good for him. I hope he does well, for all of our sakes.

However, he is still out there for me, beyond the reach of my everyday life. Obama will not come to my rescue when I confront a crisis in the world I deal with day-to-day, nor will he appear in my family photos. Sure, maybe in some larger geo-political sense he will affect my taxes, or my job security, and even the air I breathe.

A twin-propeller Cessna 402C aircraft was seized near Carepa, Colombia, just across the border from Panama in mid-December of last year while it was in the process of attempting to transport about 850 kilos of cocaine to a suspected destination in Central America — and an ultimate arrival point in the United States.

The story was not reported in the United States, but rather appeared as a short item in news publications in Panama and the Dominican Republic. The Cessna, according to those news reports, had flown out of an airport in Panama to pick up the payload of white powder in Colombia.

Though beleaguered Gov. Rod Blagojevich has exhibited little of what we would call upstanding character to date in the Illinois Senator-appointment controversy, it’s worth driving home the point that this guy is no defender of the oppressed, or minority communities for that matter.

There’s a little-noticed case still pending in U.S. District Court in Chicago that shines more light on that fact. The litigation points out that under Blagojevich, there is a total of nearly 2,000 clemency cases pending the governor’s final decision [some awaiting action for years], including those of the plaintiffs in the case, which was filed September 2006.

America’s drug war has made murder a growth industry in Juarez, a sprawling Mexican border town of some 1.2 million people located a stone’s throw from the Texas city of El Paso.

The growth of this industry is measured in corpses and coffins. Some say the number of murders in Juarez so far this yea r exceeds 1,400, but no one really knows for sure, because not all the corpses have been found, so they can’t all be counted.

In recent weeks, the U.S. media has added a new subplot to its time-tested narrative explaining the bloodshed sparked by the narco-trafficking business — an enterprise valued at as much $500 billion globally, according to the United Nations, with up to a quarter of that business flowing through Mexico to feed the U.S. drug habit.

Again, no one really knows the true size of this enterprise, because it is hidden in the shadows, but few could argue against the reality that the flow of money from illegal drug sales is helping to prop up the economy of Mexico — and the bank accounts of both legitimate and illegitimate businesses on both sides of the border, since that money spends like all other money.