More than 4.5 million people, including Kim Kardashian, on Wednesday sought clemency for a young truck driver, sentenced to 110 years in prison for accidentally killing four people in Colorado state when his brakes failed on a descent . Judge Bruce Jones, who led the driver's trial, said in his judgment last week that "
if he had had the power
" he would not have imposed such a severe penalty. But Colorado laws mechanically forced the judge to accumulate prison sentences corresponding to the charges of which Rogel Aguilera-Mederos was convicted by a jury: 27 in total, some of which in the eyes of local law were “
violent crime
”.
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For Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, the drama that occurred on April 25, 2019 not far from Denver is indeed an accident.
He was traveling that day on a freeway in a semi-trailer loaded with wood when his brakes failed, he said, on a descent.
He had finished his race at over 130 km / h in vehicles which were immobilized by an accident. The pile-up involved a total of 28 vehicles, some of which were set on fire in shock. Four people were killed and six others were injured. The prosecution notably accused the driver of negligence and disastrous choices during his mad race. According to the prosecutor's services, the young man could in particular have put his truck on a distress lane specially designed for emergency stops but chose to stay on the highway, in the middle of traffic. His lawyer, James Colgan, told ABC television that his client “
may have been guilty of faulty negligence
” but that the punishment was “
completely disproportionate
”.
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Faced with such severity, a petition was launched on the Change.org site to ask the Colorado authorities to pardon the young man or to commute his sentence.
As of Wednesday morning, the petition had collected more than 4.5 million signatures.
Reality star Kim Kardashian herself took to the young man's plight on Twitter, calling on Colorado Governor Jared Polis "
to do the right thing
."
The governor said he had received a request for clemency and was studying it.
For their part, the prosecutor's services indicated that they had requested a new hearing to review the conviction of Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, a provision according to them provided for by Colorado law "
in exceptional cases
".