On the morning of Dec. 6, 2022, Juan Carlos Jr., 33, and Lionel Rodriguez, 32, were standing near their stalled vehicle on Interstate 5 near Sutterville Road. Soon, a Sacramento police detective’s unmarked car would “drift off” the road and smash into them.

Sacramento Police Detective Jonathan Thomas Nangle was going to work that morning in an unmarked squad car. According to The Bee, the California Highway Patrol said Nangle’s Ford struck the left rear end of the brothers’ Dodge truck, then hit the two men standing on the driver’s side of the pickup.

The brothers died instantly. Nangle pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of vehicular manslaughter, but there has never been any reason given why his car veered off the road that day.

Nangle will only serve 120 days in jail — with the option to do community service to avoid jail time — for killing the Rodriguez brothers. Yet what may seem like a miscarriage of justice is in truth a consequence of California’s vehicular manslaughter laws, which state that a death caused by an automobile cannot be charged as a felony (which would carry a longer sentence of up to six years in a state prison and a fine of up to $10,000) if there is no history or proof of substance abuse.

Nangle’s case could have been upgraded to a felony had it been proven that he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the crash. Unfortunately, not one of the officers who responded to the scene that December morning deemed it necessary to conduct a field sobriety test of their fellow officer.

Why? Because they were not required to. Field sobriety tests are not mandatory after a car crash in California, even for employees driving a company car, as Nangle was that morning.

“Misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter is a terrible law, it does more harm than good — to both sides,” said Sacramento-based criminal defense attorney Kevin Adamson. “Victims hate it because their loved one is dead and the defendant likely won’t serve a day in jail. They’re outraged at the misdemeanor charge. Defendants hate it because they end up arrested over a car accident. It should be a felony or nothing. Let civil courts handle the simple negligence cases.”

Creating a mandatory field sobriety test for California police officers involved in a crime could alleviate any question of unfair treatment between law enforcement on the scene. It would also have proven beyond a doubt that the accident that day was truly a case of negligence.

If Nangle was sober that morning and the crash was nothing but a sad accident, then not charging him with a felony is fair. But without the proof of a sobriety test, the Rodriguez family and their supporters have only the word of the Sacramento Police Department to go on.

That is unquestionably shaky ground, considering the city police department’s history, the overall history of poor policing within and toward minority communities and the civil unrest that has rocked America in recent years.

Without the hard proof of a sobriety test, the Rodriguez family has every right to question if the responding officers that day were giving their colleague the benefit of the doubt, or if the working relationship between the Sacramento County District Attorney’s office and the Sacramento Police Department has become inappropriately close.

When asked, Shelley Orio, spokesperson with the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office wrote in a statement to The Bee that, “Our office reviewed the criminal referral regarding the tragic and heartbreaking deaths of Lionel Rodriguez and Juan Carlos Rodriguez caused by Sacramento Police Officer Jonathan Nangle… As in every case, we review all reports to analyze the totality of the evidence and logically apply the law. That is our ethical duty.”

“After a thorough analysis of the case and the law, the evidence did not support the filing of any felony charge,” Orio wrote.

And she’s right. There was no evidence that Nangle’s charge could have or should have been upgraded to a felony — because there had been no test.

When asked if the DA’s office thought about how it would look to give a police officer a sentence that amounts to a slap on the wrist after his actions killed two innocent men, Orio said the DA’s office does “not make decisions based on ‘public perception.’”

But had the roles been reversed, and it was the Rodriguez brothers whose truck had drifted into Nangle’s parked squad car, thereby killing an officer of the law broken down on the side of I-5 — would they have received 120 days with the option for community service instead? (The answer you’re looking for is “Absolutely not.”)

The family of the Rodriguez brothers are understandably upset and heartbroken. They are pursuing several separate lawsuits of their own in civil court. There have been lawsuits filed against Nangle and the city of Sacramento by the Rodriguez brothers’ mother and father, seeking damages the brothers would have been entitled to if they’d survived. Other suits were filed by the minor children dependent on the Rodriguez brothers, individually and collectively.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Alyson L. Lewis said in court that she didn’t necessarily think Nangle’s crime was a misdemeanor, but she was obligated to sentence him accordingly.

“I am bound to treat it as a misdemeanor, and maybe it shouldn’t be. And maybe the advocacy of the Rodriguez family would change it at the white building down the street,” Lewis said, suggesting the victims’ family could lobby legislators at the Capitol to change the laws. “But here I am bound to follow the law.”

But when the law is no longer adequate, it’s time for a change. Admittedly, it would take years of lobbying a Legislature that moves so incrementally as to appear stationary. And while it would never bring back these two brothers, fathers, husbands and sons: Juan Carlos and Lionel, the Rodriguez family could — and should — take their story to “the white building down the street.”

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