![]() ![]() ![]() If an accused has the audacity to insist on trial – as Aguilera-Mederos did – we go through the looking glass into a world of pain that the framers of the Constitution would have loathed and feared. To understand this Alice-in-Wonderland moment, we must face the fundamental truth of the modern American criminal legal system: We have abandoned the system of public jury trials established by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in favor of a shadow system of guilty pleas driven by the logic of prosecutorial power.ĬOLUMN: Life sentences in Arbery killing, but still far from BLM goal of justice for Black bodies Opinions in your inbox: Get a digest of our takes on current events every dayĬountless others who experience this absurdity won’t be saved by an executive commutation. ![]() What is truly abhorrent about this situation, however, is that Aguilera-Mederos’ journey – in which he was punished with an oppressive sentence after exercising his right to trial – is not an aberration but emblematic of how our criminal legal system operates today. It is now clear that virtually no one believed the original sentence made any sense – not the judge who was forced to impose it, not the district attorney whose office prosecuted the case. In a highly unusual move reflecting the injustice of the sentence, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis commuted the sentence from 110 to 10 years. This absurd sentence quickly inspired condemnation across the country, including a petition signed by more than 5 million people and a boycott of Colorado by truck drivers. Last month, Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, a 26-year-old truck driver with no criminal record, received a 110-year sentence for accidentally killing four people because his brakes failed as he approached stalled traffic on a Colorado highway. ![]()
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