‘I’m sorry,’ Mobile man tells family of high school senior killed in wreck
By Brendan Kirby
Click here for updates on this story
MOBILE, Alabama (WALA) — After an emotionally wrenching sentencing hearing, a judge on Wednesday imposed a sentence that will allow a drug-impaired driver responsible for a fatal car wreck to get out of jail in about six months.
It was the maximum allowed by Alabama law.
Prosecutors originally charged Yaderik Madera-Morales, 23, of Mobile, with reckless manslaughter in the May 2020 death of Devinee Rooney, an 18-year-old Theodore High School student days away from graduation. But the jury last month found the defendant guilty of the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide.
That offense, because it involved drugs, carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. But under Alabama’s Split Sentence Act, the maximum incarceration is just two years. Mobile County Presiding Circuit Judge Michael Youngpeter imposed that sentence. The defendant also will serve two years on probation and could face some or all of the additional eight years if he were to violate that probation.
Mobile County Assistant District Attorney Louis Walker noted in court that if the same accident had resulted in a serious injury to Rooney, the resulting first-degree assault charge would have been a Class B felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
“That’s illogical, and we are going to invite the Legislature to address that,” he said.
According to testimony at trial, Rooney’s death resulted from a chain-reaction accident involving multiple vehicles. Madera-Morales swerved to avoid a car that had pulled into traffic on Schillinger Road and collided head-on with a car driven by Rooney. Lab tests detected the presence of Xanax and marijuana in the defendant’s system.
Two years after the crash, Rooney’s relatives said they continue to struggle with grief and forgiveness.
“I feel a lot of my pain. And I’m trying not to be selfish, by feeling just my pain,” her mother, Terri Rooney said outside the courtroom. “And I’m a God – I’m a Christian woman. I’ve got to forgive in God’s eyes. And that’s what I’m trying to find in me to be able to do right now.”
Inside the courtroom, Rooney and her other daughter spoke of their pain – at times addressing the defendant directly.
“I just want to start off by saying how amazing Devinee was. … She was the light of our family,” said her older sister, Dezarae Rooney. “To know her was to love her.”
Terri Rooney said her daughter planned to pursue a career as a homicide detective. She described her daughter as an exceptionally warm and empathetic person. She said Devinee worked two jobs and gave away every paycheck from her second job – something the mother said she did not know until after the accident when a stranger approached her to say that Devinee had given her money so that she could give a good Christmas to her children.
“Our child was so well-known and so well-loved that this didn’t just affect our family,” she said in court. “It affected the entire community.”
Turning directly to the defense table, Terri Rooney asked Madera-Morales how he could have gotten behind the wheel that day under the influence of drugs.
“She was one minute away from home – one minute. … She had her whole life and dreams ahead of her,” she said.
Staring at Madera-Morales, she asked: “Why were you going so fast?”
Madera-Morales responded that he was depressed.
“If you would understand my state of mind. … I didn’t care about myself,” he said.
When it was his turn formally to speak, Madera-Morales read a hand-written letter expressing his remorse.
“For every night since this nightmare of an accident, I have cried and prayed for a way to bring back your shining star – including giving my own life,” he said.
Madera-Morales said it “eats at my soul.” Turning back to the victim’s family, he said, “I’m sorry.”
The defendant’s mother, Yadzia Morales, told the judge that she got into an abusive relationship that impacted her son.
“He was the kind of kid who would take his shirt off to give it somebody who didn’t have a shirt,” he said.
Sofia “Joker” Cross, who owns Fade Factory Barber College, said in court that the defendant enrolled after the accident. He was driving there – illegally since his license had been revoked – when police pulled him over last year. That prompted a judge to revoke his probation on a previous offense in May last year, and he has been at Mobile County Metro Jail ever since.
Cross, herself a former felon, told the judge that she will welcome Madera-Morales back when he gets out of jail.
“He just asked me with tears in his eyes, could he have a chance to come to school. … I would definitely be on his case because I see the potential in him,” she said.
As a condition of the defendant’s probation, Youngpeter ordered him to complete barber school. He also ordered that he provide free haircuts to the needy – a suggestion made by the defense.
The judge also ordered Madera-Morales to pay the victim’s family $21,000 to compensate them for the cost of the funeral and other expenses, as well as make a $1,000 donation for breast cancer awareness. The victim’s mother had breast cancer.
Defense attorney Jonathan McCardle said it was a difficult case for both sides.
“This certainly was not an intentional act,” he said. “I think from day one, we’ve said that this was just a tragic accident for Yaderik. It has been extremely emotional and tolling on him. He certainly did not want this to occur.”
The defendant’s mother said she understands that her son was guilty.
“But I am at ease, because it was a fair sentencing,” he said after the hearing. “I was was not unfair. It is not two lost loves now.”
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
