On December 20, 2021, a truck driver in Colorado was sentenced to 110 years in prison. The crimes for which the truck driver was convicted are not the ones that come to mind first based on the sentence. The truck driver was convicted of vehicular homicide, sixteen first-degree assaults, and attempted first-degree assault charges, among other things.
In 2019, the truck driver was coming down the highway in the mountains. During the downhill drive, the brakes on the commercial truck went out. The main sticking point for the prosecution was that the truck driver passed a runaway truck ramp after losing his brakes down the mountain. The truck driver crashed and killed four people.
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Contact Us TodayWhen the truck driver received his sentence of 110 years for a crime in which he had no intent to commit, society had another reason to doubt the criminal justice system. Due to state law, the judge was required to run the sentences consecutively, rather than concurrently, with regard to the crimes of violence (first-degree assault and attempted first-degree assault). This means that instead of the truck driver serving time on all of the charges he was convicted of simultaneously, he would have to serve each sentence for every crime separately—which clearly added up to a significant amount of time.
During the sentencing hearing, the judge admitted that the truck driver did not intend to harm anyone and had never been in trouble with the law before, but the judge said that he was required by law to sentence him to no less than 110 years. The judge said that if he had any discretion, it would not be the sentence he would impose.
The judge understands the problem in our justice system—he is handcuffed by the laws the Colorado legislature passed. The sentence sparked uproar from millions across the country; an uproar that many have been screaming for decades—take away mandatory sentences and give the judges more discretion to consider the defendant’s history, culpability, and other relevant circumstances.
Mandatory sentencing laws shackle judges. Sentencing is supposed to be decided by a neutral judge who has heard evidence throughout the trial, but mandatory sentencing laws ultimately take that away from the judge and give discretion and power to the prosecutor. The prosecutor is the ultimate decision-maker with the power to bring and drop charges. For example, a prosecutor can charge someone with a crime that carries a 25-year mandatory minimum; if that person is found guilty, the judge would have no power to change the charge or lessen the sentence if any mitigating factors necessitated it. The excessive sentence was subsequently reduced to ten years by the state’s governor.
We elect—and appoint—judges to sit on the bench to be the ultimate decision-maker when it comes to sentencing. We hold them responsible for considering the defendant’s personal history, responsibilities, culpability, and other mitigating circumstances when determining what would be a fair and just sentence. The problem is that judges are unable to do their job effectively with the legislature taking away a judge’s ability to properly sentence defendants. We will never be able to truly have fair sentences if mandatory sentencing laws take away the discretion of the judge. One of the reasons mandatory sentencing laws exist is to create consistency in sentences. If this is an example of consistency, the question is, is this something to be proud of?
