Welcome back to Hub City, where the speed limits are purely vibe-based, stoplights are decorative, and the local justice system operates on a sliding scale of how much your family name matters. Our latest example of Lubbock excellence features 35-year-old Jordan Merchant—Principal and President of Construction at 7B Development—who just walked out of the 140th District Court with a sentence that amounts to a legal pinky-swear.
Back in August 2022, Merchant was barreling down Indiana Avenue at 114th Street in his company truck, doing a cool 65 mph in a 45 mph zone. He plowed right through a red light, T-boning a car driven by 44-year-old Joni Smith. The crash killed Joni and her 9-year-old son, Conrad, while leaving a 3-year-old and an 11-year-old in the car with severe, life-altering injuries.
Now, you might think blasting through a red light at 20 mph over the limit and wiping out half a family would mean serious prison time. But that’s because you don’t understand how special Merchant’s driving resume really is. Investigators dug into his vehicle data and found out Merchant treats public roads like his personal Autobahn. Just days before the fatal crash, he was clocked doing 115 mph and 122 mph in 65 mph zones in New Mexico. Oh, and he also had nine previous speeding convictions on his record. Nine! At this point, the state of Texas should have replaced his driver’s license with a bus pass and a pair of handcuffs.
Instead, the District Attorney’s office and Judge Douglas Freitag looked at this mountain of reckless behavior and decided to offer a plea deal. They dropped the manslaughter and aggravated assault charges, let him plead to criminally negligent homicide, and handed him five years of deferred adjudication. If Merchant can somehow manage to obey the law for five years—a truly monumental task for a guy with nine speeding tickets and a habit of doing triple-digit speeds—the entire thing disappears from his record. No formal conviction. Clean slate.
During the sentencing, Conrad’s heartbroken father told Merchant straight to his face, “You are getting away with murder because of your family and wealth.” Naturally, the District Attorney’s office declined to comment on the deal, because what are they supposed to say? “Yeah, he’s rich, what did you expect?”
But hey, let’s look on the bright side: if a guy with nine speeding convictions can kill a mother and child while running a red light at 65 mph and still avoid a single day in prison, just think of the leniency the rest of us can expect the next time we forget to use a turn signal on Loop 289.
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