A Tijuana judge sentenced Nailea Salas Fernández to 21 years and eight months in prison for killing two people in a 2021 drunk driving crash. But she walked out of the courtroom free on Friday, June 5, because Mexico’s penal code bars imprisonment while a defendant appeals. The case, which left three children orphaned and permanently scarred, has become one of Tijuana’s most closely watched criminal proceedings in years.
The 2021 Crash on Vía Rápida Oriente Killed Two, Injured Three Children
At roughly 2 a.m. on May 16, 2021, Salas was driving a Chevrolet Equinox east on Vía Rápida Oriente near the CREA interchange. She was drunk and traveling at more than 100 km/h (62 mph). Ahead of her, a Pontiac Montana minivan sat stopped in a queue of vehicles waiting to cross into the United States at the San Ysidro port of entry.
Salas rear-ended the van at full speed. Inside were eight members of the Valle Guzmán family: José Armando Valle, his wife Rocío González, their three young children, and three other relatives. Rocío González and Juan Valle, José Armando’s brother, died at the scene. All three children suffered burns that left permanent injuries.
José Armando Valle, the children’s father, survived the crash but died in the years that followed. His three children are now in the care of their grandmother and aunts. The family sat in the courtroom on Friday as the judge read the sentence aloud.
Mexico’s Penal Execution Law Blocks Prison Until Appeals End
FGE (Baja California’s state attorney general’s office) asked Judge Juan José Chávez Montes to order Salas into La Mesa penitentiary immediately after sentencing. The judge refused. He cited the Ley Nacional de Ejecución Penal, Mexico’s national law governing how sentences are carried out. That law states a prison term cannot begin until a sentence reaches ejecutoria, the legal term for a final, unappealable ruling.
Salas’s defense team confirmed during Friday’s hearing that they will appeal. Until a second-instance tribunal in Baja California reviews and rules on that appeal, the 21-year sentence is suspended. Judge Chávez Montes addressed the Valle family directly. “However unjust it may seem, people have the right to defend themselves throughout the entire judicial process,” he said.
This legal mechanism is not unusual in Mexico’s criminal system. Under the accusatory penal system that Mexico adopted nationwide between 2008 and 2016, defendants convicted of non-violent felonies or offenses not on the country’s list of mandatory pretrial detention crimes can remain free during appeals. Culpable homicide (the Mexican legal equivalent of involuntary manslaughter, which covers drunk driving deaths) is not on that mandatory detention list. So even with a sentence exceeding two decades, Salas has the legal right to stay out of prison.
In Baja California, second-instance appeals typically take between six months and two years, depending on the complexity of the case and the court’s backlog. The state judiciary handles appeals through its Tribunal de Alzada (appellate court) in Mexicali. If either side challenges that ruling through a federal amparo (a constitutional protection claim), the process can stretch considerably longer.
Salas Has Been Free Since 2022, With Travel Documents Held by the Court
Friday’s ruling did not change Salas’s daily life in any immediate way. She has been free since 2022, when a different judge modified her pretrial detention order and released her from custody. As conditions of that release, the Baja California judiciary confiscated both her Mexican passport and her U.S. tourist visa to prevent her from leaving the country. Those documents remain in court custody now that she has been sentenced.
Beyond the prison term, the judge imposed a fine exceeding 125,000 pesos (roughly $6,250 USD). The charges included culpable homicide while driving intoxicated, culpable bodily injury, property damage, and offenses against vehicular traffic safety. Earlier court proceedings revealed that Salas had refused to cover funeral costs for the two victims or pay for therapy for the surviving children.
The case resonates along the border corridor for a specific reason: the victims were in a line of cars waiting to cross into the United States, a daily routine for tens of thousands of Tijuana residents and cross-border commuters. The Vía Rápida Oriente near CREA is one of the main arteries feeding the San Ysidro crossing, and late-night queues there can stretch for blocks.
The next step is the formal filing of the defense’s appeal with Baja California’s appellate court. No date for that hearing has been announced. The Valle family’s surviving children remain in the care of relatives in Tijuana, as first reported by Punto Norte.