110 year sentence for fatal traffic accident
It wasn't his fault the breaks went out. But it was his fault for intentionally not driving onto several emergency truck exits he passed by that exist to stop runaway trucks.
It wasn't his fault the breaks went out. But it was his fault for intentionally not driving onto several emergency truck exits he passed by that exist to stop runaway trucks.
Does his license check out?
It wasn't his fault the breaks went out. But it was his fault for intentionally not driving onto several emergency truck exits he passed by that exist to stop runaway trucks.
Does his license check out?
I have no idea. But what difference would that make?
It wasn't his fault the breaks went out. But it was his fault for intentionally not driving onto several emergency truck exits he passed by that exist to stop runaway trucks.
Does his license check out?
I have no idea. But what difference would that make?
Given the driver was an immigrant, I guess it was some form of racist dogwhistle about "working illegally" in the country.
Given there were no charges mentioned around not having a licence (drugs and alcohol were not detected according to the article), it would seem unlikely he was lacking the required licence.
"My administration contemplated a significantly different outcome in this case and initiated plea negotiations but Mr. Aguilera-Mederos declined to consider anything other than a traffic ticket," she told me last week.
King's statement may not shock the conscience at first glance: Plea deals are a fixture of the U.S. criminal legal system. But her remarks hit at something deeper. By her own admission, Aguilera-Mederos was sentenced to die in prison not because the state felt that was the fair and just punishment, but because he insisted on exercising his constitutional right to trial.
Called the "trial penalty," prosecutors are known to pile on superfluous charges and threaten astronomical prison time unless the defendant agrees to plead guilty and save them the trouble of a trial. Should the defendant insist on his innocence, and should a jury disagree, he will likely receive a much more severe sentence for the same actions. The only difference is that he invoked his Sixth Amendment right.
[...]
"Prosecutors vastly prefer for cases, almost always, to resolve through plea bargains. They're faster, and they're much more certain for the government," says Clark Neily, senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. "Jury trials by contrast are expensive, time consuming, and uncertain….What [prosecutors] will do oftentimes is to get very creative in bringing all of the charges that they can think of, basically to increase the defendant's exposure."
That exposure then becomes a powerful bargaining chip against those facing time behind bars. Aguilera-Mederos took the gamble. He was charged with 42 counts and convicted on 27, resulting in the mandatory century-plus sentence.
Both the defense and the government acknowledged that Aguilera-Mederos' truck brakes gave out and that the accident wasn't driven by malice. So you can perhaps imagine why he thought a jury might sympathize. He was correct: After the sentencing, one person on the panel said he "cried [his] eyes out," unaware that convicting him on the charges the government brought would carry such a ghastly term. (Juries are not informed what punishments are attached to crimes.)
Source: https://reason.com/2021/12/22/rogel-aguilera-mederos-rejected-a-plea-deal-so-he-got-110-years-in-prison/
Sweetleaf
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Jared Polis the Colorado governor reduced his sentence to 10 years, apparently over 3 million people signed a petition to reduce his sentence. Also should bring attention to minimum mandatory sentences are absolute bullcrap, even the judge didn't want to sentence him with that but with the current system he had no choice.
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We won't go back.
I was curious as the rational behind very long prison sentences in the USA - ones far exceeding the normal life span of a human being. I googled it and came up with this. Interesting how countries differ in their approach. The Norwegian guy who shot over 70 mainly young people was given 20 years in total.
https://theconversation.com/why-does-th ... son-120485
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Autistic member of the neurodivergent community
Retired NHS neurodevelopmental diagnostician
Director at the Autistic Community of Cornwall
Non-binary member of the LGBTQ+ community
https://theconversation.com/why-does-th ... son-120485
The judge who passed sentencing basically said it was ridiculous, but he didn't have any choice because of how the current system works. Perhaps this case will help bring about some reform.
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