Supreme Court agrees to hear US-Mexico border shooting case

May 28, 2019

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will decide whether families of Mexican teenagers who were shot to death by American border agents can sue for damages in U.S. courts.

The justices said they will hear arguments in the fall in a case from Texas involving an agent who fired shots across the U.S.-Mexico border that killed a 15-year-old boy.

The outcome will also affect a second case from Nogales, Arizona, where an agent fired shots that struck a 16-year-old boy in Mexico approximately 10 times, killing him. The Border Patrol agent in that case, Lonnie Swartz, has been acquitted twice of fatally shooting Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez in October 2012. Prosecutors said last year they would not seek a third trial. The teen’s family sued for damages, and lower courts let the lawsuit go forward.

In the Texas case the justices will hear, courts came to the opposite conclusion in dismissing it. Precisely what happened there in the cement culvert that separates El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in 2010 is in dispute, although that won’t factor into the court’s legal decision.

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