Republican DA bucks blue state's 'broken sentencing' with tough-on-crime approach

A tough-on-crime Republican district attorney is using his years of prosecuting a few of the majority infamous cases in Colorado to crack down on crime across the blue state In January George Brauchler became the first-ever district attorney for Colorado's rd Judicial District making it the first time in more than years that Colorado added a new judicial district He previously served as DA for the th Judicial District where he prosecuted particular of the state's biggest mass shooting cases including at an Aurora movie theater and Columbine High School I was a very young prosecutor when Columbine happened and Columbine was the high school instantly to the south of where I graduated from high school Brauchler reported Fox News Digital during an interview And so when it occurred to be assigned to prosecute the felonies out of that I thought at the time that would be the biggest worst development I would ever handle and I was wrong and that's an amazing revelation to come to in this job PARENTS OUTRAGED BY HOMEY PRISON LIFE FOR DRIVER WHO KILLED THEIR SON 'HOW IS THIS JUSTICE 'Soon after Brauchler was elected to a broader version of his current jurisdiction the Aurora theater shooting circumstance happened A guy walked into a movie theater at about in Alameda and tried to murder a theater full of people and I ended up prosecuting that We also ended up having a mass shooting here at a school at the end of my time in office I was also required to do the mock cross-examination of the victim in the Kobe Bryant rape development out of Vail back I don't know almost years ago now It's not anything you could really ever plan for It's just you're there You unfailingly say yes Brauchler explained while reflecting on his earlier career You end up evolving a skill set and an expertise And then you find yourself in a position to run for the first new district attorney's office in over years in Colorado And you think for whatever it's worth as humbly as I can put this there just isn't anybody that brings to this job right now the kind of experience that I have And I hope to use it for the benefit of my region Last month Brauchler secured a rare first-degree murder conviction in a high-profile DUI affair which marked the first murder trial in Colorado s newly formed rd Judicial District BLUE STATE SANCTUARY LAWS ENABLED ILLEGAL 'ABOLISH ICE' ACTIVIST TO EVADE CAPTURE SAYS LOCAL DAThe scenario involved Paul Stephenson who Brauchler explained drank a bottle of Fireball and two beers before crashing into a minivan that was parked in Castle Rock last August That episode was so disturbing to me on a lot of levels Brauchler reported Lt Col Matthew Anderson a -year-old Air Force test pilot and father of four was killed while pumping gas His wife was inside the gas station store at the time of the crash One of their children suffered a fractured skull and two others were also injured On a Sunday afternoon filling his car with gas while his wife goes to get the kids Popsicles specific two-time convicted drunk pours himself into a lifted Chevy Silverado crosses five lanes of traffic hops a curb hits the accelerator to and crushes that car at miles an hour injuring three of the kids and killing Lt Col Matt Anderson Brauchler stated describing the horrific scene that unfolded In Colorado the gut reaction charge would be oh that's vehicular homicide And that sounds horrible but in Colorado we have particular of the weakest traffic laws in the country So vehicular homicide would have only been punishable at preponderance by years in the Department of Corrections Given our broken sentencing scheme that guy would have been paroled in ostensibly less than four years and that seemed wholly unacceptable to me and everybody that looked at this development Brauchler continued 'DEFUND THE POLICE' MECCA OF MINNEAPOLIS OVERRUN WITH VIOLENCE 'FAILED LEADERSHIP' FORMER AG CANDIDATETo ensure that justice was served Brauchler noted his office got a little aggressive and charged the driver with first-degree murder based on extreme indifference We pursued it And I'm not going to tell you it didn't have risks I'm not going to tell you that I didn't have a pit in my stomach But in about three and a half hours of deliberation after about a weeklong trial the jury came back and mentioned Yeah guilty of first-degree murder and we're all pretty satisfied with that outcome Brauchler commented Brauchler added what this event also highlighted was that he feels we have lost sight of the purpose of the criminal justice system and taken our eye off the ball on day-to-day crimes like DUI One thing about this is that there is no time of day no road you can drive on that you can say 'Well I'm safe from drunk drivers at this time on this road ' My God this was Sunday On a road in the middle of Castle Rock not a highway on a road but across the street from the Douglas County Fair If we don't I think vigilantly attack this complication as much as any other maybe more so we're going to see more of this and this is the bulk preventable crime there is This guy chose to jeopardy people's lives and now he's going to lose his freedom Brauchler declared Brauchler explained Anderson's wife and children have recovered but the ripple effects of witnessing the horrific scene are still unknown as to how far they stretch through their lives How does seeing the violent death of their father in front of them the way they saw him lying in the parking lot with a massive head injury missing his leg above the ankle how does that haunt them throughout the rest of their lives I don't think anybody knows Brauchler declared I have spoken with the widow plenty of times She is resilient and tough but you can also see there's something missing in her eyes I don't know how better to describe it but I've seen it a lot with loss like this and that blue flame that flickers back there that tells you somebody's fully engaged is just a little more diminished It's a little harder to see And my hope for that family is that they can figure out a way to find happiness even without Col Anderson Tom Mustin director of media relations for Brauchler's office notified Fox News Digital that typically DUI cases lead to vehicular homicide charges but this development set a new precedent and reflects DA Brauchler's tough-on-crime approach that helped win him the office I don't shy away from the description tough on crime but when did purely enforcing the law and having an expectation that there would be accountability for current it become tough on crime ' Brauchler explained That just tells you how far we've shifted away from the idea of personal responsibility for criminal conduct But I'm proud of the position we've taken It's been well-received everywhere And I mean not just in our jurisdiction but when I go to other jurisdictions Brauchler a Republican DA in the heavily blue Denver metro area announced Colorado has taken such a sharp turn towards the progressive left that every other office is now dominated by Democrats which makes his position unique FSU SHOOTING SUSPECT'S CHILDHOOD INCLUDED ALLEGED FAMILY KIDNAPPING ABROAD CUSTODY FIGHT DOCS I'll tell you one thing that sticks out to me that's odd is that I've made a real point of telling the inhabitants even before I took office we're going to be an office that stands for the rule of law and that if people come down here to steal from us or victimize us they ought to expect to be incarcerated Brauchler reported That message has been so overwhelmingly received and in a positive way like people clap when I say that Brauchler added that when he started working in his field years ago and had this same messaging it would have been a yawn fest People would have been like 'Duh that's what prosecutors and police do ' But that's how far we've shifted in the other direction Brauchler disclosed When requested about other high-profile cases like the Menendez brothers' matter in California Brauchler revealed there's no good message that comes out of these two ever walking out of prison I remember when these cases happened and I followed them like everybody else Brauchler reported But this was a brutal planned murder for the largest part selfish reasons achievable Anything they come up with at this point by way of excuse has already been air-dried in front of the jury and rejected when they were convicted There's no good message for America that comes out of these guys ever taking a free breath again Brauchler stated what is troubling about the Menendez brothers' occurrence being brought back up is that every time something like this happens and someone sees any amount of success it encourages others to do this You have to believe that there are any number of defense attorneys out there who are willing to shoot for the notoriety or the paycheck In order to try to capture something like this I'm not denigrating them I know that's business but the answer should be that we should forget about the Menendez brothers Brauchler stated what the Menendez brothers' situation highlights is something that has been happening since the Aurora theater shooting that is amplifying killers There has been a real concerted effort by decent people and a great number of in the media to no longer amplify the killers like we should be focused on the sufferers I would say since the Aurora theater shooter I've announced that guy's name maybe four times through the whole trial which lasted from Jan th until April th I announced his name exactly twice And that was by design Brauchler explained And so here we are again focused on the Menendez brothers and the Netflix things about the Menendez brothers And I understand that but we should really de-glorify the criminals and focus more on the casualties and the crime that was committed And I think that if you let these guys out you do the opposite Brauchler added that there are even studies now about the correlation between the amount of notoriety that a criminal gets and then copycat-type crimes I'll give you an example with Columbine The STEM school mass shooting that I covered both of those shooters had passing fascination with those Columbine shooters We had a near-mass shooting at another high school right down the road from my kid's high school They both had a fascination with the Columbine shooters and the Aurora theater shooter Guess which circumstance he researched before he left his apartment back on July the th to go murder these people Columbine So the more notorious an event or certain people become it does have an effect on other folks Brauchler reported I get it we have to overview the bad guy or bad girl at least once Brauchler continued Then after that let's not talk about them anymore Let's talk about the crime Let's talk about the casualties and let's go to court