Colorado: Unlicensed Illegal Alien Gets Probation for Killing Woman in Car Accident
Two years’ probation, which includes 100 hours of community service, required school, and a promise not to break any laws.
The Arapahoe District Attorney’s Office has come under fire after it gave an unlicensed illegal alien teenager, 15, probation for killing a 24-year-old woman in a car accident.
Two years’ probation, which includes 100 hours of community service, required school, and a promise not to break any laws.
From CBS Colorado:
The accident happened last July in Aurora. The victim, Kaitlyn Weaver, was headed home from work when a Jeep, barreling through a residential neighborhood, slammed into her car. The speed limit in the area was 45 mph. Investigators say the driver was doing more than 90 mph.
“She didn’t even see him coming,” her dad, John Weaver, said. “That’s how fast he was going. She was effectively killed instantly.”
He says he and his wife Michelle removed their daughter from life support 2 days later, “How do you fathom that loss?”
The teenager had kids in the car with him.
The office charged him with vehicular homicide, promising to pursue two years in youth corrections, which is the maximum sentence.
A few months later, District Attorney Amy Padden offered the teen two years’ probation if he pleaded guilty:
“Why the change? If he had taken a firearm and recklessly just shot it and killed someone, this would be a different case. They would be pushing it completely differently,” Weaver said. “There’s no deterrence.”
There’s also no financial liability, he says, despite his daughter’s medical bills, which came to nearly $1 million.
The Jeep was uninsured, and the juvenile’s mom says he took it without permission, so she isn’t responsible either.
Weaver says the system is broken: “Immigration and the criminal justice system and all these things landed together one day in Aurora and now I sit here today without a daughter.”
Arapahoe County Assistant District Attorney Ryan Brackley attempted to explain the process, but only dug a deeper hole:
Arapahoe County Assistant District Attorney Ryan Brackley says an experienced prosecutor handled the plea deal without any direct involvement by the new administration. A judge, he notes, upheld the deal after hearing from the family.
He says before any plea deal, prosecutors consider “the impact on the victims and the community,” “the characteristics of the defendant such as age, culpability, and level of remorse,” and the “goals of sentencing, including deterrence, rehabilitating the offender, treating similarly situated offenders equitably, and holding each offender accountable.”
Which family? If it was after consulting the Weaver family, then that judge has no heart and soul.
Brackley said, I kid you not, “the negotiated sentence acknowledges the seriousness of this preventable tragedy.”
The audacity of these people. I just cannot. Especially since if the teen violates his probation, the plea deal included a provision that doesn’t mean his probation wouldn’t be automatically revoked.
The teen’s mother said she would send him back to Colombia.
However, the teen filed for asylum.
Weaver’s dad said: “I hope that he makes something of himself and that he remembers the chance he got and I hope that he doesn’t forget her.”
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Comments
There simply aren’t words to describe how much I loathe the bleeding-heart ideology that fosters this kind of outcome.
Illegal aliens 1 – innocent bystanders 0.
But its great that the judge made sure the kid promised to not kill anybody else.
Time for the girl’s dad to shoot the DA then shoot the illegal. Totally justified. Then put me on that jury – not guilty.
I seem unable to find the report about being immediately taken into custody by ICE and deported on the first available flight. Paging Tom Holman.
According to the story, this incident was nearly a year ago.
Right. But, he was just sentenced yesterday. ICE should have been there to collect him at sentencing. He’s not technically deportable until after he’s been convicted and you’re not ‘convicted’ until sentencing.
Anillegal alien driving without a license at over 90 mph in a 45 mph zone hit and killed an innocent young woman. There’s no financial liability, of course, despite the woman’s medical bills, which came to nearly $1 million.
The vehicle was uninsured, and the illegal’s mom says he took it without permission, so she isn’t responsible either.
The illegal got off with a slap on the wrist.
It’s a good thing he didn’t pray in front of an abortion clinic or they would’ve thrown the book at him.
It’s beyond crazy.
I consider the DA (and the judge who allowed this) to be accessories after the fact and I would throw them both in prison in an instant.
Despicable.
Who helped him file for asylum?
He’ll just go on to join the local gang and become a dealer and murderer. His whole family needs to be deported.
He needs more than that. I will leave that to your imagination because I can’t type what I’m thinking.
And WHEN did he file for asylum?
So Washington state has these drugged out zombies, many of them illegals, but mostly just felons that Inslee/Ferguson let out of jail and refuse to prosecute. They get high/drunk, steal cars, and drive the wrong way down the interstate (or side streets) at 100MPH+ and kill people about every other week.
For the last 2 years I lived there I actually kept a pair of vice grips in every vehicle to yank the valve stems from any car that hit me (before they would speed away). I saw this so many times, I decided I would just immobilize the stolen car before they would speed away.
I had too many close calls. Along with everything else in these blue state hell holes, your lives are in danger.
What would you do with the vice grips?
Yank the valve stems of the other car. It disables the car and for legit drivers, insurance covers a tow. For not legit drivers, this keeps the car in the same location until the Popo has it towed. If I was in the wrong, I’d happily pay for the tow truck.
Why?
Perps would sometimes pull over and pretend to be good citizen and tell you they will follow you into next parking lot to exchange info… and then just drive off. We saw that a few times. Rather than take that chance, I’d just yank the valve stems directly.
Other times they would just shrug and say “sorry- I’m not insured” Not like you can do anything to them.
Keep in mind I was always armed with 9mm and OC spray, so not too concerned about escalation. However with blue state hell holes your chances with being targeted by Soros prosecutors is pretty high. Hence the OC spray to give attitude adjustment.
As this girl dying demonstrates, no amount of prevention or caution will protect you from these zombies driven missiles.
Some lives are more valuable than others. It’s almost like buying more support and votes by selectively pampering illegal actions. Yet the idiot citizens of Colorado (Dems in general) can’t see themselves as cannon fodder for their masters. Look up “expendable”.
I see vigilante justice in our future.
Said that a long time ago.Vigilante Justice. If the justice system fails to protect the people then the people will have to take up the slack and protect themselves.
I often wonder if it isn’t already happening in places like small towns and other places the bleeding hearts are rare. Shoot, shovel, and shut up for humans. Or, as I like to call it, call 811, not 911.
More than anyone will talk about
Amen to that.
Her father was wayyy too polite
Damn! You’d think he was a Kennedy with that kid’s glove treatment.
If he is an illegal, isn’t mom an illegal too? If so, cast them both out after seizing all their belongings as partial restitution.
Aurora, CO, where the accident took place, is a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants.
To me, that explains a lot about the (lack of) thinking of the government and the prosecutors.
Sick
Indeed!
Sounds to me like he can do that probation in his home country. Right?
Isn’t there something about committing a crime while being an illegal where they automatically get deported?
He did his job. Thus, he is rewarded.
They want you dead.
Horrifying that the prosecutor’s office in Aurora just laughs at the American victims of crimes, while coddling illegals. Fifteen years old, driving a car “stolen” from Mom, with friends in the car, doing 90 miles per hour, and slams into another car, killing the driver. And all they can think of is probation, community service, and a promise not to break any more laws . Who is going to respect the laws in Aurora??! Justice is a joke.
you dont/cant stop leftys actions with logic
rest in peace and condolences to her family
may the bleeding hearts of liberalism have a blood clot
The people who let those criminals loose in our country should be tried as accessories whenever one of them commits a crime.
Every one of these liberals deserves to have a child die this way with no consequences for the perp. Not only did the family lose a daughter but are probably BK with the million of medical expenses.
The bad news is the libs aren’t having any children.
The good news is the libs aren’t having any children.
The bad news is they don’t need to have children, they’ll just hijack yours and brainwash them
“an unlicensed illegal alien teenager, 15… Investigators say the driver was doing more than 90 mph… The teenager had kids in the car with him.”
Perhaps our “journalists” have more that they could tell us, perhaps about the kid’s interesting tattoos.
This is just stupid. All of it. It’s sickening and preventable. The enablers in Aurora’s government deserve everything and anything bad that you can think of.
Leaving aside, for the moment, the problem with the illegal alien being here in the first place, we should be fair to the DA’s office and the judge here – even though it did itself no favors with its statement.
In Colorado, Vehicular Homicide is included in Title 18 – the criminal code, not Title 42 – the traffic code – as a class 5 felony. This is significant because it means that this “defendant” had to be prosecuted according to the juvenile justice system becuse he was a minor. He was therefore technically not convicted of anything, but rather “adjudicated” a juvenile delinquent of having committed a “delinquent act” – not a crime, even though it would have been a felony had he been an adult. The potential penalty for any deliquent act is the same regardless of the level of offense it would have been if committed by an adult, and regardless of whether it would have been a misdemeanor or a felony if committed by an adult. The juvi “justice” system operated upon the ideological premise that these are kids who screwed up and just need government services to be fixed.
Realistically, 2 years supervised probation without incarceration is actually on the *high* end of what can be imposed as a sentence for a first adjudication. When it comes to potential incarceration under the juvi system, there is “detention” – which is the equivalent to time in county jail – used as an intermediate penalty to punish probation violations, and DYC (Dept of Youth Corrections) which, despite the name, is more like an inpatent treatment facility/halfway house than prison. Becuase the goal of the juvi justice system is to “fix” broken kids, sentences are not imposed, nor intended to be imposed, based upon the seriousness of the delinquent act, but rather based upon the level of intervention deemed necessary to fix the child based upon the opinions of social workers and what has been previously tried. Thus, the problem here is not that the DA and judge were being soft on crime but rather that we have a juvenile justice system that essentially treats everything in the criminal code the same. Nobody goes to DYC right out of the gate because less intensive methods of “treatment” have to be tried first. Light as the sentence appears to be, and as light as it would be had this been in criminal court rather than juvi court (N.B. there is no provison in Colorado law to move a “mere” F5 to adult court), it was a pretty standard outcome for such a case in the juvenile justice system.
Question – since the Mother says the young man ‘took the vehicle without permission’ before his reckless driving without a license/operated vehicle insurance resulted in the death of another person …does that not factor into the equation in CO for classification of Juvenile status or on increased sentencing as a Juvenile? How many felonies does it.take to be removed to Adult Court?
If *every* charge is a Title 42 traffic violation, then it will be handled in adult court regardless of age (but in general, we are talking about offenses that carry a max penalty of a year in county jail – stuff like 2nd offense DUI or careless [not reckless] driving resulting in death – traffic offenses are more about fines and points against one’s driving license). However, if any charge is a Title 18 criminal offense, it will go to juvi court if the defendant is a minor. There is a mechanism for Class 1 and Class 2 felonies, as well as “Crimes of Violence” (meaning a deadly weapon and/or serious bodily injury or death was involved for certain ennumerated felonies) to be taken out of juvi and placed into regular criminal court. Vehicular homicide predicated on reckless driving is an F5, so it is ineligible for transfer to adult court. The offenses eligible for crime of violence status can be found in Colo. Revised Statutes 18-1.3-406, and the list does not include vehicular homicide.
While I suppose that a extensive delinquent history could affect the prosecutor’s decision in choosing whether or not to seek transfer of a case to adult court, the underlying charges themselves must be eligible in the first place. Criminal history alone does not qualify any case for transfer.
There certainly is a discussion to be had about whether the juvenile justice system as found in the several States is fit for purpose. Bust let us first review how we got here. Under Common Law, one had absolute legal immunity up until age 10; thereafter, one was subject to the criminal law. During the Victorian era and on into “Progressive Era” of the early 20th Century, our society decided that there was a period of human development called “adolescence” wherein physical maturity could be combined with legal minority and subsequently we introduced a system of graduated acquisition of rights a privileges (e.g. 16 YOA for a drivers license, then 18 to vote, the 21 to drink). The juvi justice system was part of this. The idea was that for adolescents, the brain wasn’t fully developed, and these criminal acts done by adolescents were not motivated by criminality but rather by bad decision-making caused by some combination of lack of life experience, incomplete cognitive development or lousy home environment. The original juvi justice system transformed the adversarial criminal justice process into an inquisitorial one without things like presumption of innocence. The idea was that the kid would be sat down with the police, the judge, the DA, his parents, social workers, and maybe the victim, and collectively, they would encourage the child to take responsibility then collectively decide what state intervention would be needed to correct the child’s life path away from career criminal into productive member of society. All parties involved were supposed to be making decisions in the “best interests of the child” – punishment for the sake of punishment was supposed to be abandoned (although punishment for didactic reasons was still on the table). At some point, and I cannot remember the case, the Supreme Court ruled that children in the juvi justice system were entitled to the full gamut of due process rights afforded to adult criminal defendants, which introduced a problem into the system whereby everybody was supposed to be working for the best interests of the child by having him take responsibility and get services, but the defense attorney was also, contradictorily, also trying to alleviate the child of any responsibility as well. The system is now in place, and because there is a bright-line cut-off to the age at which a person is treated as a juvi rather than an adult, we get all sorts of situations in which persons under the age of 18 are involved in what is clearly criminal activity like armed robbery of the 7-11 but we have to pretend that it is the same a senior prank gone wrong. It has also let to things like drug dealers using minors to hold contraband because of the lesser-to-non-existent penalties in the juvi justice system, resulting in the irony that the system is actually bringing these juveniles into the life of crime rather than diverting them away from it.
The age limit exists, of course, because the law needs to have clear lines. We could, however, re-think it. While 18 makes sense because it corresponds to the age of legal majority in the US (except, for some reason, when it comes to alcohol possession), we could lower it to, say, 15.5 – the age when teens can get their learners permits. We could perhaps draw the line at 15 but then include the ability for a case to be transferred from adult court to juvi court until the age of, say, 21 (thereby reversing the presumption for delinquency for older teenagers). We could make the juvi system entirely discretionary to the DA and/or judge so that kids who actually need intervention can get it while precocious criminals are treated as criminals. These latter two suggestions, however, raise other questions of how much discretion are we willing to invest in criminal justice professionals. Based upon many of the comments to this article, it seems that there is quite a lot of distrust of the system and the people working in it out there, and we if we want to empower prosecutors and/or judges to be able to craft individualized solutions in the interests of justice, we must also be willing to defer to their judgment, otherwise the system cannot function for want of legitimacy.
That’s a whole lot of text and history that may be invaluable to those who didn’t already posses the info. Seriously, not sarcasm, good to see it.
My question was does the additional factor of a stolen vehicle impact the classification in CO and is there any combination of felony crimes which automatically move the case out of Juvenile status? Just trying to understand how CO administration of these sorts of issues differs from Alabama. Thanks.
Ok. I see what you ate asking. The answer is “no.” There are no crimes that automatically move a case out of juvi into adult court. All cases involving a violation of something in Title 18 by a minor go into juveline court. If it is a class 1 or 2 felony or if it is a crime of violence, the DA *may* transfer it into adult court under certain circumstances. *Only* cases including F1 and F2 crimes or crimes of violence even have the possibilty of transfer. There are other requirements, such as having a prior history of adjudication for deliquents acts that would have been crimes of violence had they been committed by an adult, and there will be a hearing for a judge to decide if it is appropriate to try the kid as an adult. The critera are set forth in C.R.S. 19-2.5-801 and 802.
The fact that this particular came might have also included an Agg. Motor Vehicle Theft (in Colo., all car theft is “aggravated,” but cases without actual aggravation are “2nd degree AMVT” rather tgan “1st degree AMVT” – it makes no sense to me either), but AMVT is also either an F4 or F5 (depending on vehicle value), so it wouldn’t qualify the case for a transfer into adult court either. If a juvi defendant wereto pick up 100 F3 burglary of dwelling cases in gigantic statewide crime spree, it would still be stuck in juvi court because there is no provision for trasfer due to the multiplicity of crimes.
Just to expand a bit. There are not that many F1 and F2 crimes in Colorado. Off the top of my head, they are:
-Murder 1
-Attempted Murder 1 and Conspiracy to Commit Murder 1
-Murder 2
-Kidnapping for money where the kidnap victim dies
-Forcible rape that involves either (1) a gang rape, (2) a deadly weapon or (3) serious bodily injury
-Distribution of Schedule I or II drugs is really large amounts (but as a practical matter, this alone would never get one into adult court)
There might be others, but that is all I can recall off the top of my head.
“Crimes of violence” mean crimes involving a deadly weapon and/or SBi or death AND are on the following list:
-Crime against an at-risk adult or at-risk child
-Murder (N.B. this means Murder 1 or Murder 2, not stuff like “manslaughter” or “vehicular homicide” even though somebody is killed unlawfully).
-1st or 2nd degree assault (the elements of which already include the use of a deadly weapon, SBI or both). N.B. in Colorado, “assault” means that the physical contact occurred – other states might call this “battery;” threatening to cause physical harm in Colorado is called “menacing,” and is not eligible for crime of violence status.
-Kidnapping
-Aggravated Robbery (i.e. robbery with a real or simulated weapon – it is a crime of violence if the weapon is real)
-1st degree Burglary (i.e. burglary of a dwelling – as opposed to a “building” such as a business)
-Sexual Assault
-1st degree Arson
-Escape
-Criminal Extortion
-Human trafficking
-Unlawful Termination of Pregnancy (although I have never seen this actually charged or prosecuted – I suppose that, given Colorado’s abortion laws, it would have to be a circumstance where somebody forced a woman to miscarry against her will)
-Attempts or Conspiracy to commit any of the above.
So, if the minor commits one of these crimes and is over the age of 14, the DA *may* choose to direct file as an adult, in which case there is a “reverse transfer hearing” in which the defense will try to convince the judge to force the case into the juvenile justice system. Also, unless the crime is an F1 or F2, the defendant must already have been previously adjudicated a delinquent for a crime of violence (so, prior adjudication for something like simple robbery would not qualify) in order to direct file at all. If the case is initially filed in juvenile court and the DA decides to transfer it to adult court, the same threshold criteria apply and there is likewise a hearing before the judge to determine if the case will indeed be litigated in adult criminal court or whether it will stay in juvenile court.
Thus, in Colorado, nothing that a minor does will necessarily land him in adult criminal court. Only the most serious crimes make such prosecution even a possibility’ thereafter, some of these crimes have an additional requirement of serious criminal (or, I suppose more accurately, delinquent) history. Then, there are two layers of discretion that need to be gone through – the DA’s office and the court – for the case to move to or stay in adult court. The presumption is for prosecution in the juvenile justice system, and while such presumption is rebuttable, it takes more than a crime spree, criminal history, or the severity of the offense alone to do it – some combination of the three will need to convince *both* the prosecutor *and* the judge that adult prosecution is the right thing to do, assuming the statutory threshold has been met in the first place.
This is what is wrong–
Weaver’s dad said: “I hope that he makes something of himself and that he remembers the chance he got and I hope that he doesn’t forget her.”
“I hope he makes something of himself”?
Besides a murderer and a car thief?
Austin Metcalf father did the same asinine thing.
What the hell is going on?
Are we all ‘turning the other cheek’?
Is this ‘christian charity’?
Phaah, the church can’t die fast enough if what it does is create men that glory in their emasculation as their children are slaughtered.
If your god wants you to smile through your grief and ‘forgive’ your child’s killer that they may kill again then you need a new god.