Judging Freedom - Truck Driver's 110-year sentence for deadly crash

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

Rogel Aguilera-Mederos killed four people when the brakes on his big rig failed, causing him to crash into stopped traffic in 2019. State law mandated consecutive terms. Judge Napolitano breaks it all down.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. Good morning, everyone. Judge Napolitano with Judging Freedom with another pop-up with What's On My Mind. We're getting a lot of very positive feedback from you guys. Tell your friends about this.

I'm going to pop up on air, just as I did when I was at Fox News, and explain late-breaking developments in the legal world. And here's one for you now, a truck driver in Colorado who was driving an 18 wheeler. His brakes failed and the 18 wheeler smashed into the cars in front of him and it exploded and they exploded and four people were killed. It was an accident. A judge sentenced them to 110 years in jail. He's 26 years old. It wouldn't matter how old he is. 110 years is a lifetime sentence because the Colorado statute required the judge to do that.

Now, I can remember when I was a trial judge here in New Jersey, I sentenced over a thousand people for everything from jaywalking to murder and everything in between. Judges hate when the statutes force your hand and tell you how to sentence the person. In New Jersey, you sentence the crime. That is, you sentence the person for the crime that they committed, not for the person that they are. Most judges would rather sentence for the person that they are. What I mean by that is, is this truck driver a bad person? Did he intend to kill these people? Because if he had shot them with a gun, he wouldn't have gotten 110 years. He would have gotten 30 years. So why did the statute require this massive sentence? Well, the Colorado legislature, in its wisdom or its political whatever, decided that the roads would be safer with these

severe sentences. Now the prosecutor who prosecuted this young man is asking the judge to disregard the Colorado law and sentence him to something reasonable. And the families of his victims are asking for the same thing. This is why we have judges. This is why judges shouldn't be potted plants. This is why we're not sentenced by computers or by algorithms. People, defendants who are convicted or sentenced by human beings who take into account the defendant's remorse, the defendant's culpability, the defendant's ability to have a fruitful life, the defendant's intention at the time of the crime. He did everything humanly possible to stop that truck. So we'll see where this ends up.

My hat is off to the prosecutor who's trying to get this sentence reduced. I hope the judge does the right thing. We're getting close to my favorite season of the year. I'm going to start saying Merry Christmas to all of you. Merry Christmas. Judge Napolitano, judging freedom.