judge colorado sentencing judicial-review judiciary
Under what circumstances in Colorado can a judge sentence below a mandatory minimal sentence?
<p>The facts around the case of Rogel Aguilera-Mederos seem pretty clear cut, however unfair.</p>
<ul>
<li>A jury found him guilty</li>
<li>The judge didn't want to sentence him to 110 years.</li>
<li>The judge had to sentence him to 110 years because it was the mandatory minimal sentence.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/27/us-judge-to-reconsider-trucker-110-year-sentence?fbclid=IwAR249K-Tyk-eub36bApjohj1rgwfkkuc8u-fiJmHeeq7Z5NboySOCGjCNBc&amp;sf157318016=1&amp;sf157315922=1" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Now I'm reading in the news</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>A judge in the US state of Colorado is set to consider on Monday a <strong>request from prosecutors to reduce the 110-year prison sentence of a truck driver</strong>...</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How can a judge reduce a sentence below a mandatory minimum?  Shy of being granted clemency or an act of the legislature is there anything that can happen here?</p>
<hr />
<p><a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/q/76583/218">Follow up question, <em>&quot;What happens if a judge disregards a mandatory minimal sentencing law?&quot;</em></a></p>

<p><strong>Who decides when those conditions are met?</strong> (<em>taken from the OP's comment</em>.)</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://law.justia.com/codes/colorado/2018/title-18/article-1.3/part-4/section-18-1.3-406/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">§ 18-1.3-406. Mandatory sentences for violent crimes - definitions</a> of the Colorado Criminal Code:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>...within ninety-one days after he or she has been placed in the custody of the department of corrections, <strong>the department shall transmit to the sentencing court a report on the evaluation and diagnosis of the violent offender,</strong> and the court, in a case which it considers to be exceptional and to involve unusual and extenuating circumstances, <strong>may thereupon modify the sentence, effective not earlier than one hundred nineteen days</strong> after his or her placement in the custody of the department...</p>
</blockquote>

<p>From the article:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Colorado law allows for sentences for crimes deemed violent to be modified in cases with “unusual and extenuating circumstances”, but those sentences cannot take effect until 119 days after a person enters prison.</p>
</blockquote>
