PLN 22

I just read "Hernandez gets 60 years in ice-cream shop crash" in The Denver Post by Carlos Illescas about how a 25 year old male named Francis Hernandez was convicted on 19 counts because of a crash that killed three people at an Aurora ice cream shop. He was sentenced yesterday to 60 years in jail. A father of one of the victims, 3-year-old Marten Kudlis, was upset that the sentence was little more than half the 108 years Hernandez faced. On Sept. 4, 2008, the Suburban Hernandez was driving at 80 mph hit a small pickup that was turning into a strip mall. The collision sent the truck, driven by Patricia Guntharp, 49, careening into the store. Guntharp was killed, as was her passenger, Debra Serecky, 51, and Marten Kudlis, a little boy who was in the shop with his mother. Before he was sentenced by judge John Wheeler, Hernandez took the stand and read a letter begging for mercy and apologizing to the families of the victims. "I know this has been very, very hard for you and me." He choked up as he noted that although he had been called a baby killer, he has children of his own. "I have two little girls who need me," he said. "I have to go home." An Arapahoe County jury convicted Hernandez, who is in the country illegally, on Feb. 23. After the conviction, the family of Marten Kudlis filed a civil suit in Arapahoe County District Court, seeking damages from Hernandez and his family; the family of Guntharp, who was high on methamphetamine at the time and several police agencies that had arrested Hernandez before and did not report him to federal authorities.

This matters to the world because we don't need people who aren't supposed to be in our country to be driving illegally and killing innocent people. This matters to me because a lot of my friends are starting to drive and it scares me. I don't turn 15 until this summer and my parents have told me many times that I will not get my driving permit when kids my age usually do because they think it is too early. I would be scared to get in a car with some of my friends, they are not responsible enough to be driving!