Johnnie Sutton resigns as U.S. Attorney

U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of Austin, who served as the top federal prosecutor for 68 Central and West Texas counties during the Bush administration, has tendered his resignation. His last day at the U.S. attorney's office for the Western District will be April 19.

Sutton was nationally reviled for the prosecution of two Border Patrol agents who shot a fleeing drug smuggler in the buttocks in a 2005 encounter near El Paso. The prosecution and convictions of Jose Compean, sentenced to 11 years in prison, and Ignacio Ramos, sentenced to 12 years, was angrily derided by advocates of tighter immigration laws.

Bush commuted the two men's sentences in the very last hours of his presidency in January. Ramos and Compean are now free. Called before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2007, Sutton defended his prosecution of the two.

Sutton, 48, was a prosecutor for eight years in the Harris County district attorney's office before moving to Austin in 1995 as then-Gov. Bush's criminal justice policy director.He followed Bush to Washington, working on the president's transition team and serving in the Justice Department.

President Obama will select a new U.S. Attorney for the office.