JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — A truck driver who pleaded guilty to causing a crash that killed a man earlier this summer will face a maximum of one year in jail. That’s a far more lenient sentence than what we have seen handed down for similar crashes involving big trucks on our roads.
Ignacio Cruz-Mendoza will be sentenced in Jefferson County courthouse on Friday.
The widow of Scott Miller, the man who died in the crash, is trying to figure out why the district attorney’s office didn’t bring forward more charges.
"I'm mad that I’m not going to get justice for my husband, mad because the least the most this man can get is a year for murdering my husband because the DA refused to charge him with more charge," Deann Miller said.
This summer has been impossibly difficult after what happened here on June 11. Scott Miller died when a truck slammed into his car on Highway 285 near Bailey.
Cruz-Mendoza didn’t have a valid commercial driver’s license, and he was in the country illegally. Miller knows Cruz-Mendoza should never have been driving next to her husband.
"I mean he should not have been behind the wheel of that truck, and he knew that, and he chose to do this," Miller said.
Cruz-Mendoza was only charged with misdemeanor traffic violations: one count of careless driving resulting in death and three counts of careless driving resulting in injury.
He pleaded guilty to those charges in July and will be sentenced on Friday. He faces one year in jail and some fines.
"It makes me feel like they didn’t do their job," Miller said. "They’re not doing their job. Who else is going to get these rogue truck drivers and these rogue trucking companies off the road if not the people we put in charge to make us safe."
After the DA’s office in Jefferson County charged the driver with a misdemeanor, Cruz-Mendoza surprised them and pleaded guilty in his arraignment, which prevented prosecutors from filing more charges as they got more evidence from crash investigators.
9NEWS legal analyst Scott Robinson said double jeopardy prevents any more charges from being added after the guilty plea.
"At the time they filed the charges, all they had was probable cause on a misdemeanor charge of careless driving resulting in death," Robinson said. "What the prosecution didn’t anticipate is that the defense would rush forward and plead guilty. There’s no question that the decision to just file the misdemeanor charges is coming back to haunt the prosecution, at least to a certain degree."
How short is a one-year sentence?
Earlier this year, a truck driver in Weld County was sentenced to 16 years for a deadly crash on Interstate 25. A couple of years back, the same district attorney's office in Jefferson County prosecuted the truck driver who killed four people on Interstate 70. He got a 110-year sentence before the governor stepped in to reduce it.
Miller is still trying to wrap her mind around why more charges weren’t filed before Cruz-Mendoza had the opportunity to plead guilty.
The DA’s office tells 9NEWS they are still looking into the trucking company involved in the crash. That investigation is ongoing. Monique Trucking has a history of violations including drivers on the road without proper licenses.
After losing her husband less than three months ago, Miller will walk into a courtroom on Friday to tell a judge why the man who crashed into her husband deserves the maximum sentence. A sentence she feels is far too short.
"How many more people have to die on Colorado roads, on any road, before they start doing their job?" Miller asked.