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Two Colorado district attorneys expressed their discontent after Governor Jared Polis commuted the prison sentence of Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, who had been sentenced to 110 years for a 2019 car crash that killed four people.
Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty, a Democrat, and Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, a Republican, wrote a letter to Polis on January 20, which was obtained by the Denver Post. It said his decision was "unprecedented, premature and unwarranted" and would have a "substantial ripple effect" on future cases.
In their letter, they argued Polis should have let regular legal proceedings play out, as the process of shortening the sentence was already underway, the Post said.
Aguilera-Mederos, 26, said his brakes failed on April 25, 2019 while he was driving a truck 85 mph on a section of Interstate 70 where commercial vehicles were limited to 45 mph due to its steepness, Colorado Politics reported. Unable to stop the truck, he crashed into 28 vehicles.
This created a "chain-reaction crash" and a "fireball" that killed four people, the Associated Press reported. The victims were 24-year-old Miguel Angel Lamas Arellano, 67-year-old William Bailey, 61-year-old Doyle Harrison and 69-year-old Stanley Politano.
After the crash, Aguilera-Mederos was convicted on 27 counts, including vehicular homicide, according to Colorado Politics. Because of Colorado minimum sentencing laws, the sentences must be served consecutively, not at the same time, which was why it was 110 years long. The AP reported Judge Bruce Jones, who imposed the sentence, said it would not have been his choice.
The incident caught attention on social media after a Change.org petition for the governor to commute Aguilera-Mederos' sentence went viral and garnered over 5 million signatures.
On December 30, Polis commuted the sentence to 10 years despite a district attorney having already started the process of having Aguilera-Mederos' sentence reduced, the Post reported. Dougherty and Rubinstein argued in their letter that Polis let the social media uproar affect his decision when he should have waited for a judge to shorten the sentence.
"Sentences should be influenced by the facts and circumstances, not by petitions, online surveys or tweets," they wrote.
The letter cited a recent Boulder case in which a defense attorney used Aguilera-Mederos' case to call an eight-year sentence for someone convicted of sexual assault too excessive. According to the Post, the two district attorneys sent their letter to Polis a day before he met with the Colorado District Attorneys' Council.
Dougherty told the newspaper at the meeting that Polis "wanted to clear the air and acknowledged that his action was unprecedented," adding "DA Rubinstein and I are optimistic that our concerns were understood and that what happened in that case was an exception."
In a statement emailed to Newsweek, Conor Cahill, Polis' press secretary, said Polis let the punishment "fit the crime" when deciding on Aguilera-Mederos' new sentence.
"Governor Polis is a problem-solver and when he saw a problem like a bizarre 110-year sentence that undermined confidence in our criminal justice system, he used his legal authority to step in and fix it," Cahill wrote. "Governor Polis has been clear about his thoughtful process and evaluates each clemency application individually, understands the weighty responsibility that comes with each decision and follows the law in making a decision."
