Extradition stirs up controversy - Articles - CAIR - Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform

The family of slain Los Angeles sheriff's Deputy David March finds both solace and sadness in the arrest in Mexico of a man suspected of killing a Denver police officer.

But the decision of the Denver district attorney to not seek the death penalty or life imprisonment in exchange for getting the suspected killer back to the U.S. also has exacerbated rifts within the March family and added to recriminations about the case.

In Washington, both the Los Angeles and Denver cases are serving as a call to arms among members of Congress bent on pressuring the administration to renegotiate its extradition treaty with Mexico.

Under that pact, the Mexican government refuses to extradite criminal suspects who may face the death penalty or life in prison, both of which the Mexican Supreme Court has ruled to be cruel and unusual punishment.

"We have to go back and renegotiate the treaty. And we will not make substantial headway until the secretary of state and the president make this a priority," said Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley.

Cooley, unlike the Denver district attorney, said he will not consider forgoing death penalty or life imprisonment charges against Armando Garcia, the man police suspect in March's killing at a traffic stop in Irwindale in 2002. Garcia has since fled to Mexico.

"It's a matter of principle," Cooley said. "It's also a matter of not creating incentives for murderers. We here in Los Angeles County are not going to discount the price for killing" just because a suspect manages to make it across the border.

"You can't be giving an advantage to a serious criminal. It creates a two-tiered justice system."...

Young and Detective John Bishop were shot on May 8 while working security at a baptismal party in Denver. Young was killed and Bishop was wounded.

Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey decided to accede to Mexico's restrictions in requesting the extradition largely because both Young's family and Bishop wanted the gunman prosecuted locally, spokeswoman Lynn Kimbrough said....

"If we can get (March's killer) back and lock him up for 70 years or 60 years, that's the rest of his life," he said....

Yet with fleeing criminal suspects heading to Mexico more often than anywhere else, that's where the political heat has been. On Thursday the House International Relations Committee unanimously accepted an amendment by Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., urging the Mexican Supreme Court to "revisit" its ruling....

"The solution is simple," he said. "We need a better, improved extradition treaty with Mexico."