Judge convicts officers in Yoncalla man’s death

Wednesday, October 08, 2008 |
PORTLAND (AP) — A judge has found four Mexican police officers guilty of homicide in the Aug. 27 death of an Oregon tourist, The Oregonian newspaper reported Tuesday.
Sam Botner, 38, of Yoncalla died less than an hour after he was taken to jail after stabbing another resident at a condominium in the resort town of San Jose del Cabo — at the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula.
Prosecutors said a surveillance video showed officers beating Botner, and photos taken after the death showed a body covered in bruises.
Botner had been vacationing with his wife after returning from a commercial fishing trip. An autopsy determined he had traces of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death.
The autopsy concluded that Botner died of asphyxiation. Prosecutors attributed that to the jailhouse beating.
Under remnants of the old Napoleonic Code there is no presumption of innocence in Mexico, so defendants must prove it. Mexico recently passed reforms creating a presumption of innocence, but states have eight years to put the changes into practice.
The judge has a year to decide sentences for the four officers. All are likely to face a minimum of 10 years behind bars. Another officer was found guilty of abuse of authority and freed after he paid a fine.
“I don’t care if they’re guilty or not. It doesn’t bring him back,” Carla Botner, Sam’s mother, said after learning of the verdicts. “I just plead for mercy for everybody.”
Tags »
Embed This Article
Feel free to embed this article onto your website by copying the
code below and pasting it into your site's HTML.
The comments below are from users of theworldlink.com and do not necessarily represent the views of The World or Lee Enterprises. Participation Guidelines
Note: There is a maximum of 200 words per comment. If you wish to post more, please visit our forum.
Not already registered?
The World welcomes your comments about stories, and we encourage a robust dialogue on this site. All comments must meet reasonable standards of decency and civility.
Please follow these basic rules:
- No defamatory comments about individuals or businesses.
- No deliberately false information.
- No obscenity or racially offensive language.
- No harassment, verbal abuse, threats or personal attacks.
- No information that invades another person's privacy.
- No business solicitations or charitable solicitations.
Comments that violate these standards will not be posted. Users with repeated violations may be banned from future posting.Comments will be approved throughout the day during business hours. After hours and weekend comments may not appear until the following business day. It may take a couple of hours before comments are approved.
The World generally does not edit comments, but we reserve the right to edit any comment that does not meet our standards.
Close Guidelines