Colorado Governor slows down motorists’ sentence by 100 years | Court Matters

Rogel Aguilera-Mederos’s call for help signed more than five million, calling for a compassionate driver.

In the United States, Colorado Governor Jared Polis has upheld a 110-year sentence for a truck driver convicted of carjackings, reducing the 10-year deadline for prosecutors to return to court this week seeking redress.

In a letter to Cuban-born motorist Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos, 26, the ambassador said the blaze on the highway that killed four motorists in April 2019 was “tragic but accidental”.

The decision on the Aguilera-Mederos decision was one of several changes at the end of the year and the pardon granted by Polis on Thursday.

The driver is required to receive a parole for five years, the governor said.

This comes a few days after the judge decided to reconsider the decision on January 13 at the request of a state attorney who wants to reduce the sentence to 20 to 30 years.

More than 5 million people have signed an online petition for mercy from Aguilera-Mederos, who was found guilty in October of four counts of carjacking and several counts of assault and reckless driving in a 2019 massacre that killed four people.

Aguilera-Mederos testified that he was carrying lumber when the brakes of his small car failed as he descended the Interstate 70 slope in the Rocky Mountain range. His car crashed into a slow-moving vehicle resulting in another accident, resulting in a chain-reaction and a fire that engulfed vehicles and melted parts of the highway.

A video that appeared on the scene showed cars and trucks burning with flames, fires flashing across the sky, and timber scattered across the road.

Judge Bruce Jones handed down a 110-year sentence on December 13 after finding that it was too short a time to regulate the law, saying it would not have been his choice.

Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online.

District Attorney Alexis King criticized the police, saying the governor had completely reversed the judge’s approach to prosecuting victims and surviving families.

“We are disappointed with the governor’s decision to act prematurely,” King said in a statement, adding that the final decision on the future of Aguilera-Mederos should be decided by a judge.

First District Attorney Alexis King in a strange way to the prosecutor asked the court to reduce the Aguilera-Mederos sentence.[File: Helen H Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images]

The king in a court hearing on Monday asked for the sentence to be reduced to 20 to 30 years, saying the amnesty was appropriate if there was no intention to violate the law.

Attorney James Colgan said King’s actions were “baseless.” “Two weeks ago, (critics) it was clear that my client was 110 years old until people complained,” he told Reuters news agency after Monday’s trial. “It’s all political.”

The accident killed Miguel Angel Lamas Arellano, 24, William Bailey, 67, Doyle Harrison, 61 and Stanley Politano, 69.

The governor said the case would trigger a debate on the verdict, but said any change would not help Aguilera-Mederos.

Polis said the driver was “innocent” but the 110-year sentence was “unlimited” compared to those who “committed intentional, premeditated, or violent acts.

“There is an urgent need to overturn this unjust sentence and restore confidence in the equality of our criminal justice system, which is why I have decided to remove your sentence,” Polis wrote.