CRIME AND NO PUNISHMENT
On the morning of Saturday, March 5, 2022, 14-year-old Marissa Cardona and her mother were traveling to a weekend softball tournament. As they passed through the intersection of Mount Whitney Avenue and Cedar Avenue in unincorporated Fresno County, Ashley Engen ran a stop sign at 76 miles per hour in her Lexus SUV and crashed into the Cardonas' vehicle. Marissa was pronounced dead at the scene. Her mother sustained a traumatic brain injury and needed a walker when she attended Engen's plea and sentencing hearing more than 18 months later.
Engen broke at least two traffic laws. First, she ran a stop sign. She didn't even slow her vehicle. Second, she was traveling well above the posted speed limit of 55 miles per hour. Engen ultimately pleaded no contest to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence.
In October 2023, the judge sentenced Engen to one year of informal probation and 360 hours of community service. There was no incarceration. In explaining her decision, the judge told the Cardona family, "Nothing that this court does today will be sufficient, and that's because I cannot make the Cardonas whole." I can't help but imagine how painful those words must have been for Marissa's family. Of course the court couldn't make the Cardonas whole. Their 14-year-old daughter was dead. Nothing a judge could do would change that.
But if the impossibility of making the family whole was being offered as a rationale for leniency, the logic is flawed. It resembles what's known as the "nirvana fallacy": discounting an imperfect response because it cannot produce a perfect outcome. Locks don't prevent every burglary, but that's not a reason to leave your door unlocked. Recycling won't solve climate change, but that doesn't make recycling pointless. And a sentence cannot bring someone back to life, but that doesn't mean a sentence serves no purpose.
The judge in that case was Stephanie Negin—the same judge who, it would turn out, later presided over the hearing for the driver who killed my wife. In my July post, I mentioned that the driver's sentence included an adult work program, with some of his earnings supposedly to be sent to me. In other words, after his conviction in connection with Jenny's death, his principal punishment was essentially a paying job.
"It's precisely because we can't bring Jenny back that consequences matter."
Knowing the sentence would be seen as light, or as no sentence at all, Negin justified it with comments that will sting anyone who loved Jenny for the rest of their lives. It was the same song and dance as in the Cardona hearing, but somehow worse. Her comments are a masterclass in rationalization:
"We can't bring Jenny back."
This is the nirvana fallacy again, and it's also an empty consolation. She used the "we can't bring Jenny back" line to justify a light sentence. But, if anything, I would argue the opposite is the case. It's precisely because we can't bring Jenny back that consequences matter. After all, if we could bring Jenny back, we wouldn't even be meeting in a courtroom.
"A misdemeanor is what's before me, so that's what I have to work with."
This is passing the buck. The charge sets the range, but the judge decides where within that range to land. Charging decisions are generally made by prosecutors, but that doesn't explain the sentence Negin chose. Under California law, she could have sentenced the driver to as much as one year of incarceration. Instead, he received 50 days in an adult work program—a paying job.
"He expressed remorse by pleading no contest."
This comment is as disgusting as it is a non sequitur. Negin is supplying remorse on the driver's behalf rather than pointing to an expression of remorse from the driver himself. A no-contest plea does not admit guilt, so the plea itself is hardly evidence of remorse. And he never reported to the program, which says far more to me about his remorse than the plea does.
I'm not a neutral observer, but it still defies belief that a judge could say any of this to my face after the driver was convicted in connection with my wife's death. Judge Stephanie Negin spent fifteen years as a public defender before she was appointed to the bench in 2022 by Gavin Newsom. Listening to her explanations that day, I couldn't escape the impression that she had never entirely left that role. Again and again, her words seemed to explain or defend the position of the driver rather than explain why the sentence she chose was a fair consequence for the life that had been taken.
I've had more than 30 months to think about her comments. I've replayed them, questioned my own reaction to them, and considered whether time would change how I heard them. It hasn't. After more than two and a half years of stewing over what I still consider to be indefensible remarks, I've reached the same conclusion: I can scarcely imagine what more Negin could have said in defense of the driver—or what less she could have done to persuade me that a fair sentence had been imposed.
For the Cardonas and for us, the sentences leave questions we will carry for the rest of our lives, while the drivers responsible for our losses—and the judge who sentenced them—move on.
In Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, the killer eventually reports for his punishment.
In Jenny's case, the judge chose a sentence that depended on the driver doing the same. And, he never even showed up.
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