Judge refuses to oust prosecutors from border shooting case

TUCSON, Ariz. – A federal judge is refusing to order the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Arizona to step aside from prosecuting a Border Patrol agent charged with second-degree murder in the cross-border shooting of a Mexican teen in Nogales, Sonora.

U.S. District Raner C. Collins’s order says he’s troubled by the prosecution’s delay in furnishing pathology documents to Lonnie Ray Swartz’s defence but says it’s not a violation that requires ousting the prosecutors from the case as the defence requested.

Swartz is accused of firing through the border fence from Nogales, Arizona, into Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, and hitting 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez about 10 times.

Swartz said Elena Rodriguez threw rocks at him, endangering his life. The boy’s family has denied that, saying he was walking home after playing basketball with friends.