Colorado Trucker’s Prison Sentence Is Reduced by 100 Years

U.S.|Colorado Trucker’s Prison Sentence Is Reduced by 100 Years

The 110-year situation condemnation fixed to the operator of a motortruck progressive successful a 2019 clang that killed 4 radical was reduced to 10 years by the politician of Colorado connected Thursday.

Gov. Jared Polis called the archetypal condemnation “unjust” and “disproportionate compared with galore different inmates.”

“Your highly antithetic condemnation highlights the deficiency of uniformity betwixt sentences for likewise situated crimes,” Mr. Polis wrote successful a missive to the driver, Rogel L. Aguilera-Mederos. He added, “This lawsuit volition hopefully spur an important speech astir sentencing laws” successful the future.

Mr. Aguilera-Mederos volition beryllium eligible for parole connected Dec. 30, 2026, according to the governor’s letter.

On April 25, 2019, Mr. Aguilera-Mederos was driving a motortruck connected Interstate 70 successful Lakewood, Colo., adjacent Denver, erstwhile it crashed into respective cars, sidesplitting 4 people.

Mr. Aguilera-Mederos has said malfunctioning brakes were the superior origin of the crash. The institution helium was driving for, identified in section quality reports arsenic Castellano 03 Trucking L.L.C. successful Houston, did not instantly reply to messages near astatine telephone numbers associated with the company.

In October, a assemblage recovered Mr. Aguilera-Mederos blameworthy connected 27 counts, including vehicular homicide and vehicular assault. On Dec. 13, a territory tribunal judge, A. Bruce Jones, sentenced Mr. Aguilera-Mederos, past 26, to much than a period successful prison, citing a Colorado authorities instrumentality that required sentences for each number to beryllium served consecutively, alternatively than concurrently.

The lengthy condemnation drew contiguous scrutiny, from radical including the judge, who, Reuters reported, said, “If I had the discretion, it would not beryllium my sentence.”

A petition calling for Mr. Aguilera-Mederos’s condemnation to beryllium reduced rapidly garnered millions of signatures.

As the petition gained traction, Gage Evans, the woman of William Bailey, who died successful the crash, said successful an interrogation that Mr. Aguilera-Mederos “should walk immoderate clip successful situation and deliberation astir his actions.”

“We are genuinely the victims,” she said, adding that she believed that Mr. Aguilera-Mederos had made “bad decisions each on the mode that day.”

Prosecutors had initially said Mr. Aguilera-Mederos was liable for the deaths due to the fact that of respective decisions helium made portion down the wheel, including not steering the truck, which was hauling lumber, onto a runaway-truck ramp on the highway.

Before formally seeking a commutation — which would trim the situation condemnation but not undo the condemnation — a lawyer for Mr. Aguilera-Mederos, James Colgan, said that “we’re not saying he’s guiltless and didn’t marque mistakes” but that “the punishment has to acceptable the crime, and this punishment does not acceptable the crime.”

The determination came arsenic Mr. Polis pardoned much than 1,300 radical who had been convicted of possessing 2 ounces oregon little of marijuana. He commuted the condemnation of 2 different people.

“You person wondered wherefore your beingness was spared erstwhile different lives were taken,” the politician wrote to Mr. Aguilera-Mederos. “You volition conflict with this load of this lawsuit for the remainder of your life,” and “you volition service your conscionable sentence.”

Alyssa Lukpat contributed reporting.