He Stands Alone: Inside the Sentencing of the NAU Pledge Master in Colin Martinez's Hazing Death

Colin Martinez was 18, just embarking on his college years at NAU in Flagstaff. On the night of January 30, 2026, he played a drinking game at a fraternity pledge event. By January 31 he was dead.

On September 30, one person stood in a Coconino County courtroom to be sentenced for it. His name is Carter Eslick. He was 20, a sophomore, and the fraternity's pledge master, the member in charge of the new pledges. He supplied the bottle of vodka and he gave the pledges the rules of the game. In August he pleaded guilty to hazing resulting in death, a Class 4 felony, exactly as the grand jury charged it.

He was the only one. And the remarkable thing about this hearing is that nobody in the room pretended that was the whole story. The prosecutor said it. The family's attorney said it. And Judge Stacy Krueger said it to Eslick's face, in the sentence that will follow this case for a long time:

I watched the entire hearing, call to order through the advisement of rights, and this piece walks through it beat by beat: who spoke, what they asked for, what the State admitted it could not prove, what the judge did, and why she did it. Then I am going to question it, in both directions, because that is what we do here. Every quote below comes from the hearing record itself. Where I bring in a fact from outside that courtroom, I tell you so. Where the record goes quiet, I tell you it goes quiet. I do not fill it in.

▶️ WATCH THE FULL SENTENCING HEARING · LIVE 11:40 AM ET, OCT 2 NAU Frat Pledge Master Sentenced in Colin Martinez Hazing Death as Judge Says Others Lied to Police

What a sentencing hearing is, and what this one was not

A quick orientation, because the procedure matters to everything that follows. Eslick was not on trial. There was no jury. He had already admitted the crime on August 10, so the question of guilt was settled before anyone walked in. This hearing existed for one purpose: to decide what happens to him now.

In Arizona that is called an aggravation and mitigation hearing. Aggravating factors are reasons a sentence should be harsher. Mitigating factors are reasons it should be lighter. Each side puts its factors in front of the judge, the people affected get to speak, the defendant gets a chance to speak, and then the judge weighs it all and pronounces sentence.

There was one more piece of framing that shaped every minute of this hearing, and it is easy to miss. This was a plea agreement that stipulated probation. In plain English, the deal itself guaranteed Eslick would not be sent to prison. The judge still had real power inside that deal, including the power to order jail time as a condition of probation, but prison was off the table before anyone spoke. The prosecutor explained why later in the hearing, and I will get to that, because it is one of the most important things said all morning.

So the stakes in the room were narrower than the word "sentencing" suggests. Nobody was arguing over whether a young man would spend years behind bars. They were arguing over what accountability looks like when prison is not on the menu, and over what one person can fairly be made to carry for a night that, by every official account in the room, involved a lot more than one person.

The game, in the State's own words

Before I get to the speakers, here is what Eslick actually admitted, because the hearing's arguments only make sense against it. The prosecutor read the factual basis for the plea into the record. A factual basis is the set of facts the defendant agrees are true when he pleads guilty, the facts the State says it could prove.

According to that factual basis, on January 30, 2026, Eslick committed hazing by causing Colin Martinez to engage in the "consumption of alcohol that posed a substantial risk of death or physical injury," specifically by causing Colin to play a drinking game. The defendant "provided a bottle of vodka for the purpose of the game and gave the instructions for playing the game," which led to Colin drinking "significant and ultimately fatal amounts of alcohol," and the game was played for the purpose of initiating pledges into the fraternity.

Then the prosecutor added something the formal factual basis had left out: a description of how the game worked. The game had a name, and it is profane, so I will not print it. The mechanics are what matter. A bottle of vodka was passed among the pledges. Each pledge would take a drink from it. The idea, in the prosecutor's words, was that "they had to finish it themselves, so the more you drank, the less your fellow pledge would have to drink."

Sit with that design for a second. The game took the best instinct a pledge has, the instinct to protect the guy next to him, and turned it into a reason to drink more. The more loyal you were, the more you poured into yourself. That is the game an 18-year-old freshman was handed on a night he was trying to become part of a brotherhood.

The prosecutor also made a point of saying that Eslick confirmed all of this, both at the change of plea and long before it. "In fact, he confirmed the day it happened," the prosecutor said. "He's always been extremely forthcoming about his own involvement. I want to be clear about that and recognize that."

Hold onto that detail. It turns out to be the hinge of the entire hearing.

Five people stood up for Carter Eslick

The defense presented five speakers. The judge already had a stack of character letters attached to the presentence report, the background report a probation officer prepares before sentencing, so these five were the people who wanted to say it out loud.

His father went first. Cody Eslick opened by offering his "deepest condolences to the Martinez family" and apologizing for any involvement by his family. Then he said something I did not expect a defendant's father to say at a sentencing. He said that as a father of three, he believed his most important job was teaching his kids right from wrong, and that there were things he "failed to teach them or failed to explain to them." In those gaps, he said, "toxic influences and toxic communities have stepped in, promoting harmful behaviors disguised as tradition."

He talked about what anyone can see on the news, the culture around fraternities across the country, and said he hoped universities would work together to eliminate organizations and practices that foster dangerous behavior. Then he turned to his son's future: a modified spring semester to catch up, summer classes, an online plan to graduate in the spring of 2027, regular sessions with a counselor, and 40 hours a week of work in construction, first as an intern and then as a full-time hire.

His mother spoke next. She said she was heartbroken for the young man who lost his life and for a family that mourns him every day, and heartbroken for her own son. She said she was proud of one thing about that night: "I am proud that Carter was not drinking that night." He was the designated driver, she said, and he left the house before 11 p.m. to drive two young men back to their dorm, one of them another pledge. According to her, he did not know anything was wrong until the following morning, and he went back as soon as he heard.

She described what came after. He had to leave the university, his friends, his girlfriend and the life he had built in Flagstaff. He went home, complied with every requirement placed on him, worked service jobs, started online classes, and now balances school with a full-time job. He goes to church every Sunday morning, she said, even when nobody else in the family can go with him. She told the judge she knows her son is "not perfect," and asked the court to see the person he is working to become.

The third speaker was a family mentor. She introduced herself as a grief and trauma therapist with more than 20 years of experience in sudden loss, and she said something honest right away: "Typically, it would be the Martinez family that I am sitting with." She was clear that Eslick was not her client. She had known him for years through her church's youth group, and they still meet every few weeks.

She gave the line that the judge would quote back at the end of the hearing: "I believe that both can be true." She believed wholeheartedly in this one young man while acknowledging the devastating loss of another. She told the court she had "watched one death turn into two deaths too many times," and she described him now as sad, in shock, confused, scared and anxious, trying to keep his chin up so he would not frighten his own family.

She also brought a perspective most character witnesses do not have. She said she had clerked for a trial judge in Colorado for nearly a decade, and she spoke directly to the bench about how hard these cases are on the person who has to decide them. "There are two families hurting in front of you today," she said, "one that has lost a child and one that has lost their child's innocence." Then came her real ask, and it matters, because the judge would answer it directly: "I'm asking you not to use Carter as an example." She closed by saying he is "already serving a sentence that is self-induced and society-imposed," and asked the court to be "as lenient as the law will allow."

The fourth speaker was his best friend of 12 years, who said it was his birthday and there was nowhere else he would rather be. He apologized for not having a speech prepared, said his heart hurt for the family, and said Eslick had been there for him "every second."

The fifth was a family friend who is himself an attorney. He told the court his own son had just received a bid from a fraternity and was pledging, and that they had talked about this case many times. He said he was in a fraternity 30 years ago and a lot has changed. And then he said the thing in this hearing that I would push back on hardest, which I will come back to: when he talked to Eslick about that night, he said, the picture in his head was different from what he heard. Nobody yelling. Nobody in anyone's face. He called it "more of a celebratory congratulations hazing event," and he was careful to say that this was "not meant as an excuse, just a little perspective." He also said what happened "is gross and awful."

He made one legal point too. With plea agreements, he said, there should be some sort of benefit, and he granted there was "a small benefit, but he pled to the charge." According to him, going to trial "was not an option" for Eslick, because he wanted to accept responsibility.

Colin's parents spoke, and they asked for something specific

Then the hearing turned to the Martinez family. Chris Martinez and his wife appeared by video, with Colin's oldest sister beside them. Chris Martinez read their statement. I am going to give you more of it than anything else in this piece, because it deserves to be read in full, and because it turns out to be the blueprint for the sentence.

He began with who Colin was, before anything about that night. "Colin was our only son." He was a brother to two sisters who miss him, loved by family members and friends who are devastated. "He was our beautiful boy." He was 18, with people he loved, people who loved him, plans he wanted to pursue, and an entire future he expected to live.

"We never wanted our son's life to become a collection of death reports, evidence, charges, and court proceedings," he said. And then: "Every morning since January 31st, our family has awakened to the reality that he is not coming home." He described going with his wife to Colin's grave to water the grass over their son, and shedding tears there together. "No parent should ever have to bury their child."

Then he did something careful, and I want you to notice it. He said the family was grateful that what happened to Colin "has not been reduced to a tragic mistake or a night of college drinking that went terribly wrong." Then he named what it was instead:

Courage, he said, is "a word that's become very important to me since losing my son." Fear, self-protection, group loyalty and convenience tempt people to inaction when another human being desperately needs them to act. And then the three sentences that open our video, because nothing anyone else said all morning landed harder:

"Instead, our only son paid the ultimate price," he said, "and we will pay for it for the rest of our lives."

Read those courage lines again and look at who they are aimed at. They are not aimed only at the pledge master. They describe a room. Stopping what was happening. Recognizing the ritual was not worth a life. Responding with urgency when Colin could no longer respond for himself. Eslick, by his mother's account, had left before 11 p.m. The father's words are about everyone who was there for the rest of that night.

The family also thanked the people who did right by Colin. They thanked the Flagstaff Police Department for taking his death seriously from the first moment, and the Coconino County Attorney's Office for recognizing that his death deserved accountability.

"But accountability matters," he said. "It matters because somewhere right now there's another 18-year-old kid who wants to belong." There is another freshman who trusts the older students around him, another group of young people who will someday have to decide whether protecting a tradition, their friends or themselves matters more than protecting the person standing in front of them.

Then came the family's ask, and it was precise. Within the limits of the plea agreement, they asked for a sentence that "carries meaningful consequences and communicates clearly that hazing, which places another human life in danger, is not harmless tradition, youthful stupidity," or something to be explained away afterward. "It can kill," he said. "It killed our son."

And then he spoke directly to Carter Eslick:

They hoped that when he sees someone afraid to speak up, afraid to call for help, afraid to stand against a group, he will tell them "what that cost of fear can be." Colin cannot come back, the father said, "but his life can still demand something from the rest of us. It can demand courage. It can demand that when another human being is vulnerable, we act."

Notice what the family did not ask for. They did not ask for prison. The prosecutor confirmed that they never had. They did not seek restitution. What they asked for was consequences that mean something, and for the young man who handed out that bottle to spend part of his life warning other young men. Keep that in mind when you get to the sentence.

Carter Eslick spoke for himself

After the court entered judgment on the plea, hazing, a Class 4 non-dangerous, non-repetitive felony committed on or about January 30, 2026, Eslick was given the chance to address the court. His statement was short.

"I'm so incredibly deeply sorry for the events that happened on January 30th," he said. "And I take full responsibility for the hand that I played in that ritual."

He described himself at 19, "just looking for some friends" when he joined a fraternity. He said that if he had known "that one day somebody's life could possibly be in my hands," he never would have gone near it. He told the Martinez family that nothing he could say would replace or bring closure for their loss, "because I can't even imagine what the pain of you losing a child feels like," and said he prays for them every day.

Then he made a pledge of his own, before he knew what the sentence would be: "I want to spend every day talking to 18-year-olds, 20-year-olds, 21-year-olds across America and letting them know how dangerous this culture can be." And one more line: "I now know how dangerous hazing can be."

That word "now" is going to matter. The judge saw it differently, and so do I, and I will come back to it in the section on what she called the steps that "cut both ways."

What the defense asked for

Eslick's attorney kept his argument brief and leaned on the sentencing memorandum he had already filed. He said the defense largely agreed with the presentence report, and he made a statement that points straight at the biggest unanswered question in this case: "Carter looks forward to working with the victims' attorneys in their pursuit of justice for the others that were involved in this matter."

Read that sentence carefully. That is the defense, on the record, describing "others that were involved," and promising to help the family pursue them. I will come back to it.

The defense disagreed with the presentence report in two ways. First, the report recommended 60 hours of community service, and defense counsel called that too low. He said Eslick was capable of much more, pointed to the 360 hours the law mandates in another context, and said a number like that would make sense here as the best way for him to make amends with the community. He told the court Eslick wanted to be involved with groups where he could tell the story and make an impact.

Second, the report recommended a jail term this summer. The defense asked the court to defer that jail instead, to hold it over Eslick's head as a tool for the probation department while he focused on community service, and much more of it than the report suggested.

In other words, the defense was offering a trade: more service, less immediate jail. Hold that thought too. The judge built something that looks a lot like that trade, but she built it on her own terms, and with a much bigger number hanging over it.

The State explained why prison was never on the table

The prosecutor opened by reminding the court who this was about: Colin Martinez, "just 18 years old, embarking on his college years at NAU when he lost his life January 31st, 2026." Then came the factual basis I walked through above, with the investigation behind it credited to the lead detective from the Flagstaff Police Department, who was in the courtroom.

Then the prosecutor did something I respect, and something prosecutors do not always do. He explained, on the record, why the State had offered the deal it offered.

Start with the law itself. The legislature made this offense probation-eligible. That means, in the prosecutor's words, prison "was never something that could be demanded because even if a jury found guilt, this court would have discretion to sentence to probation." So the State was never choosing between prison and probation the way people might assume. Even a guilty verdict at trial could have ended in probation.

Then he named the inputs. First and foremost, the victims. He described the family's "grace," a word he credited to defense counsel, "which they have shown literally from the day I met them, which was the day they found out their son was dead." They have never been vindictive, he said, and never indicated they were seeking prison. The lead detective, he said, shared the view of the Coconino County Attorney's Office that prison was not an appropriate sentence.

Then the statutory mitigating factors. Remorse first: the defendant had been "remarkably forthcoming from the beginning, describing his own acts," not shifting blame and, "if anything, doing quite the contrary, accepting the blame on himself." His employment. A complete lack of any criminal history. His age, having just turned 20. And his family support, visible in the courtroom that day.

On aggravation, the State asked the court to find the emotional harm to the victim's family, which falls under a specific aggravating factor in Arizona's sentencing statute. "You heard from them, and I'm not going to try to summarize that," the prosecutor said. "It weighs heavily." He told the court that against the weight of that harm, it had discretion to order jail time under the plea, and he deferred to the court on that.

He also acknowledged the presentence report's concern about not interfering with Eslick's schooling, and reached for an analogy: the Hippocratic oath doctors take. "We don't want to take a person who is on a track never to harm another person in society and see what we can do to maximize the chance that he might fail." He deferred to the court on that as well, and asked for three years of standard probation.

He left one money question open. The victims were not seeking restitution, the prosecutor said, but his own view was that it should be left open under Arizona law in case anything changed while the sentence was running, and he deferred to the family's attorney on that. He closed by saying that nothing anyone did would bring back Colin Martinez, and that a felony conviction for hazing resulting in death was the appropriate level of accountability given "the lifelong suffering this crime has caused Colin's family."

"We know there were others involved"

Now the part of the State's argument that should stop anyone reading this.

The prosecutor addressed, directly, the question everyone watching was asking. He noted that defense counsel had mentioned an effort outside this criminal case to seek accountability from others through the civil legal system. And then he said this:

He said the State has an ethical obligation to pursue criminal charges only based on evidence. And he went out of his way to say this was not an apology for the investigation. "Quite to the contrary," he said, the lead detective "did everything he could."

Then:

And then the explanation of why Eslick, and only Eslick, was standing there. "Carter Eslick was named by multiple witnesses as the person who provided" the alcohol and the instructions for the game, "and he was the pledge master. And he admitted to doing exactly that and describing his role." The prosecutor summed it up himself: "So I just wanted to address why we're not here in a courtroom full of defendants."

I want to be careful here, and fair to everyone in this story who was never charged. Nobody other than Carter Eslick has been convicted of anything in Colin Martinez's death. Every person not charged is entitled to the same presumption anyone else is. What I am reporting is what the State's own prosecutor told a judge in open court: that the State believes others were involved, believes people covered up "for themselves, for their friends," and that the cover-up worked well enough that the State could not build a case. Those are the State's words, and they are a remarkable thing for a prosecutor to say out loud.

One fact from outside the courtroom frames all of it. After Colin died, Flagstaff police arrested three members of the chapter's executive board on suspicion of hazing. Carter Eslick was one of them. A grand jury indicted him and only him. The other two were never charged with anything, nobody in that hearing named them, and they are owed the same presumption of innocence as anyone else. I am not naming them here either. But three arrests and one indictment is the shape of this case, and it is the shape everyone in that courtroom kept describing.

Then the family's attorney spoke, briefly. "This case is about a culture," he said, "a culture of callousness" in fraternities. He thanked the county attorney for unearthing as much evidence as possible, and said that investigative search continues. "What the family wants is to know what happened, and we still don't know that." He ended plainly: "This is not a game. It's a matter of life and death, and that culture has to change."

Put those statements next to each other and here is what the record shows. The prosecutor says others were involved and people covered up. The defense says there were "others that were involved" and that its client will help the family pursue them. The family's attorney says, eight months after Colin died, that his family still does not know what happened. Everyone in the room agrees on the shape of the hole. Nobody in the room could fill it.

The judge refused to make him an example, and said so

Judge Krueger began her ruling by drawing a line she clearly cared about. She told Eslick she was mindful of her obligation to sentence him based on the nature and circumstances of this crime and on the aggravation and mitigation, and not to set an example in relation to the wider culture. "It would be improper for me to sentence you in any way that was meant to set an example to others," she said. "I have to make an individualized determination based not only on the circumstances of what happened here, but also on your character otherwise and your past conduct."

That was a direct answer to the mentor who asked her not to use Eslick as an example. It is also the law. A sentence is supposed to fit the person in front of the judge, not the headlines.

She drew a second line just as carefully. "I'm also mindful of the fact that you are not charged with killing Colin," she told him. "You're charged with hazing that ultimately had a grave chance of harming someone and did ultimately result in someone's death." She acknowledged that "perhaps there is a distinction without a difference for some," but said she focused on what he did and what happened on the evening of January 30 going into the 31st.

And she drew a third. She noted that Eslick, as the designated driver, "left many, many hours before it was clear, or should have been clear, that Colin needed immediate, emergent medical help."

Those three lines together set the frame. She was not sentencing him for the whole night. She was not sentencing him for the culture. She was sentencing him for what he did. And then she spent the next several minutes explaining why what he did was serious enough to earn the maximum jail term the law allowed.

"You knew this was dangerous"

The judge talked about hazing itself in terms I have rarely heard from a bench. She said she just could not believe "that this intolerable behavior is still taking place when it is so obviously dangerous and the consequences so profound," and yet "it keeps happening year after year." She called it "this normalized, completely unacceptable behavior," and said that was a much bigger conversation.

Then she turned to Eslick personally, and she did not let him hide behind his youth. "You know better than anyone else because you were in his same position the year before," she said. He had been a pledge himself. He knew the intense pressure to fit in, to belong, to be part of a community, and he knew "the encouragement, and frankly, the expected behavior of pledges in order to belong." Part of that, she said, was "this so-called game that expected pledges... to drink to the point of oblivion."

"And for what?"

Then she gave Eslick credit, real credit, for what he did to make the game less dangerous. She listed it. He cut the vodka with water. He cut the game short when, by her account, 35 other fraternity members were encouraging another round. He changed the location to try to make it safer. He got rid of blindfolds, a detail his attorney had laid out in the sentencing memorandum.

Pause on the number in that list. Thirty-five other members, by the judge's own account, were pushing for another round, and the pledge master was the one who stopped it. That is the court describing the room, and it is not a room with one person in it.

She also described what was missing from that room: "not one person speaking up. No one caring more about the well-being of others over their desire to fit in."

And then she turned his own precautions around on him:

She said he "put the pressure to fit in over the well-being of other human beings." The consequences, she said, were "life-changing, they were life-ending." She said she could not imagine being Colin's parents and receiving "that call or that knock on the door," that she could not fully comprehend "the nightmare that they live every day," and that her heart broke for the family and for a harm she agreed was immeasurable.

Now go back to what Eslick said a few minutes earlier: "I now know how dangerous hazing can be." The judge's reasoning answers that word "now." She was telling him, in effect, that the record shows he knew then. A person does not water down vodka, cut a drinking game short and take blindfolds off because he thinks the game is safe. He does those things because he knows it is not.

"And yet you stand here alone"

Then came the passage that this whole hearing is going to be remembered for. The judge referred back to the prosecutor's explanation of why Eslick was the only one standing there, and said she was glad he had addressed it.

That is a sitting judge, on the record, saying that other people lied to police about what happened to Colin Martinez. She did not name anyone and I will not either. Nobody else has been charged, and nobody else is convicted of anything. But understand what she said: the reason this defendant stands alone is, in part, that he told the truth.

And then, immediately, she closed the door on any idea that this changed his sentence. "But the reality is, Mr. Eslick, it really doesn't matter who else was involved. You have to accept the consequences of the choices you made." Choices, she added, "that seem so remarkably out of character for you."

She was candid about what came next. Part of the sentence, she said, would be "pure punishment," meaning jail. "I'm not pretending like that is helpful to you. It is pure consequence." But most of it, she said, the part served on probation, would be up to him. His sentence would be "an encouragement for you to go out and educate others," so that someone learns from what happened here and does not repeat the same behavior to fit in.

She told him the reason for the pure punishment piece was the shockingly high level of alcohol involved, and that "you were present and you were in charge when those games were played." And she told him what she hoped for: that he would be part of shifting the culture and the expectations of people who somehow think, and have been taught, that this behavior is in any way okay, and that he and others would put the care and concern for the well-being of others "always well above the pressure and desire to fit in, regardless of whatever social consequences may come from that."

The findings

Formally, the court found one aggravating factor: the significant and immeasurable emotional harm to Colin's family.

On the other side, the court found several mitigating factors. His age: he had just turned 20, and she said she considered his age at the time. Under Arizona's catch-all mitigating factor, she found that he had no prior felony convictions and zero criminal history otherwise. She separately found that he was a full-time student who remains enrolled, and employed. She found significant family and community support, shown in the letters, which described how out of character this was for him. And, quoting the mentor directly, she said "both can be true, right? And that's what's so difficult."

Finally, she found him "sincerely remorseful" and said he had "very clearly accepted responsibility for your role" in this horrible outcome, "unlike many other folks in positions in your same fraternity."

That is the second time in her ruling she drew the contrast. Once about honesty with police. Once about accepting responsibility. Both times the comparison was to people who were never charged.

The sentence

The court followed the stipulations in the plea agreement. Here is everything it ordered, in plain English.

Three years of standard probation, starting the day of sentencing. The standard terms apply: he must stay law-abiding, he cannot possess weapons, firearms or ammunition, and probation can search his person or property at any time without a warrant to check compliance.

No contact with the Martinez family, unless probation approves it in writing.

No alcohol, even after he turns 21. The judge noted that Eslick had decided on his own, right after that night, never to drink again, and that he had been fully compliant while the case was pending. She ordered it anyway: while on probation he cannot consume or possess alcohol, and he cannot use or possess drugs except as prescribed or with a medical card.

Treatment, whatever probation decides is appropriate after an assessment.

Transfer to Maricopa County, where he lives, with a $150 transfer fee, plus the standard probation fees and assessments. The judge also declined to build in the possibility of increased sanctions, saying, "I would be very surprised if you didn't do well on probation."

Then the part everyone was waiting for. The judge said it herself: "I know you're waiting because you want to know the rest of the punishment."

Here is how it works. Eslick must serve "the maximum allowable time in jail, which is one year," and the judge gave him the option of having all but 60 days of it suspended. Every presentation he gives earns one day of credit against the remaining time. Within 30 days, his lawyer has to file a proposed schedule for serving the 60 days. Also within 30 days, Eslick must create, write and submit his presentation directly to the judge. She will review it, and only once she approves it can he start scheduling talks. She said she expects him to give them to high school students, college groups, fraternities and other community groups.

The prosecutor asked for a clear record, and summarized it well: a 60-day requirement, a schedule submitted, a written presentation within 30 days, and, in his words, "305 other days of jail hanging out there." He asked when the court would decide on the rest of that jail time.

The judge's answer: Eslick must file a notice with the court every six months showing how many presentations he has completed, with supporting evidence. And he has to complete either the full jail time or 305 presentations "before your probation can end." If he is doing well and probation recommends it, the court can consider ending probation early, but not unless or until those requirements are done.

He received credit for two days already served toward the 60. Restitution was left open for the length of probation. None is being sought now, but it can be requested later.

Before the hearing closed, the judge spoke to him one more time. "I know that you wish you could turn back time. I know you wish that. I wish you could." But he can at least help others learn from "this horrible and completely foreseeable outcome," so that maybe some other people will not have the same outcome.

He was advised of his right to seek post-conviction relief within 90 days, and told that because he has no prior felony convictions, his civil rights will be restored automatically once he completes his sentence.

Question one: is a talk-it-off sentence accountability, or a way around it?

Now the part where I do my job. Start with the sentence itself, because people are going to react to it from two completely opposite directions, and both reactions deserve to be taken seriously.

The first reaction goes like this: a young man died, and the person who handed out the vodka and gave the rules is doing 60 days, with the rest of a year he can talk his way out of. Three hundred and five speeches instead of 305 days. That can look like the system letting a remorseful, well-supported college kid from a good family buy his way down with words.

I understand that reaction. But the record does not support it, and here is why.

First, the judge gave him the maximum. One year was the most jail the law allowed under this plea, and she ordered all of it. Nothing about the structure is lenient on paper. Every day he does not earn off, he owes.

Second, look at what the presentations actually demand. Three hundred and five talks is not a weekend of community service. To finish inside a three-year probation, that works out to roughly two presentations a week, every week, with a judge-approved script, to rooms full of students and fraternity members, standing up and telling them what happened to Colin Martinez and what his own part in it was. Every six months he has to prove it to the court. And his probation cannot end until it is done, one way or the other. That is a public reckoning repeated hundreds of times, and it is harder than sitting in a cell in a lot of ways.

Third, and this is the part I keep coming back to: this is what the family asked for. Chris Martinez stood up, on video, and said, "my wife and I hope you spend part of it telling other young men what happened that night." The family did not ask for prison. They asked for courage, and for this young man to carry Colin's story to the next 18-year-old who wants to belong. The judge took the family's own words and turned them into a court order.

Now the second reaction, from the other direction, and it deserves the same seriousness. The judge said at the very start of her ruling that it would be "improper" to sentence Eslick "in any way that was meant to set an example to others." Then she built a sentence whose entire engine is Eslick teaching others, and told him his sentence would be "an encouragement for you to go out and educate others." Is that an example sentence with a different label on it?

I do not think it is, and the record shows why. Setting an example means piling on punishment beyond what this person deserves to send a message to everyone else. That is what the mentor asked her not to do, and the judge did not do it. She did the opposite: she offered him a way to reduce his own punishment through work that matches what he himself said he wanted to do with his life, before he knew the sentence. "I want to spend every day talking to 18-year-olds, 20-year-olds, 21-year-olds across America." She held him to his word.

But here is the question I would put to the court, and it is a fair one. What happens if the audiences do not materialize? Three hundred and five judge-approved presentations require 305 rooms willing to host him. The sentence puts the burden of finding them on him, and the consequence of falling short is jail. That is a structure that depends heavily on institutions outside the courtroom, high schools, colleges, fraternities, community groups, opening their doors. The six-month notices will tell us whether it works. We will be watching them.

Question two: did the judge punish him for trying to make it safer?

This is the reasoning in the ruling I expect to hear the most argument about, so let me take it seriously from both sides.

The judge listed what Eslick did to reduce the danger: watered-down vodka, the game cut short over the objection of 35 members wanting another round, a new location, no blindfolds. And then she said those steps "cut both ways," because they prove he knew how dangerous the game was.

Here is the worry. If precautions become proof of guilt, what lesson does the next pledge master take? That trying to make a dangerous thing less dangerous only builds the case against you? That the safer strategy is to do nothing, know nothing and say nothing? In a culture where, by the prosecutor's account, people covered up for themselves and their friends, a ruling that treats safety steps as evidence of knowledge could look like one more reason not to step up.

That is a real concern. But I do not think it is the right reading of what the judge said, and here is why. She did not punish him for the precautions. She credited them. She listed them as steps he took to "lessen the risk of this game." What she refused to do was let the precautions erase the knowledge they reveal. And the line that settles it is the one right after: "you also knew it never should have happened. And that's why you're here today, because you did it anyways."

Cutting the vodka was not wrong. But the only truly safe step was the one he did not take: stopping the game before it started. The offense he admitted is causing a pledge to drink in a way that "posed a substantial risk of death or physical injury." What he understood about that risk is the heart of the judge's point, and a man who waters down the bottle understands it.

So where do I land? The judge's logic is sound as law. But I would add the piece the ruling did not say out loud. If Eslick's precautions prove he knew the game was dangerous, then what did the 35 members encouraging another round know? What did the people still in that house after he left, before 11 p.m., know? The judge's own reasoning about knowledge does not stop at the pledge master. It points straight at the room.

Question three: what does it mean that the honest one is the only one charged?

This is the biggest question in the case, and it is the one I most want you to think about.

Put the record together. The prosecutor said Eslick was named by multiple witnesses and admitted his role, and that the State could not build a case against anyone else because people "covered up for themselves, for their friends, and did a good job of it." The judge said he stands alone in part because "you chose to be honest about what went on while other people flat out lied to police." She found him remorseful and accountable "unlike many other folks in positions in your same fraternity."

So by the account of both the prosecutor and the judge, the path to standing alone in that courtroom ran through telling the truth.

Let me argue the system's side first, because it is a strong one and it is the side that protects all of us. Prosecutors are not allowed to charge people on a hunch. The prosecutor said it plainly: the State has "an ethical obligation only to pursue criminal charges based on evidence," and "we can't create evidence where we don't have it." That is exactly how it is supposed to work. The same rule that frustrates everyone in this case is the rule that keeps innocent people out of prison. A prosecutor who believes others were involved, and who still does not charge them without proof, is respecting the presumption of innocence. I would not want it any other way, and neither would you if you were the one being suspected.

And the prosecutor went out of his way to say this was not a failure of effort. The lead detective "did everything he could." The family itself thanked the Flagstaff Police Department for taking Colin's death seriously from the first moment.

Now the other side, and the record supports this too. If the State believes people covered up, and the judge says people lied to police, then the outcome in this case is that a cover-up, by the State's own description, worked. The lesson the next fraternity takes from this courtroom could be a terrible one: the person who comes clean is the person who gets convicted.

The judge clearly felt that tension herself. "I've asked myself that so many times," she said. Then she told Eslick it "really doesn't matter who else was involved." For his sentence, she is right. He is accountable for his own choices, not anyone else's, and he pleaded guilty to exactly what he did.

But for the public, it matters enormously who else was involved. Colin's parents described a night where "there were opportunities to protect Colin," and "that courage was not there." The judge described a room where not one person spoke up. Eslick, by his mother's account, was gone before 11 p.m., and the judge found he left "many, many hours" before Colin's need for emergency help was or should have been clear. Which means the hours that mattered most for whether Colin Martinez lived happened after the only charged person was gone.

What happened in those hours? The hearing never walked through them. Nobody at that podium described who was in the house after Eslick left, or what they saw. What has been reported publicly, from court documents, is this: around 3 a.m., people in the house heard Colin making an unusual snoring sound. They moved his position, checked his pulse and searched online for the symptoms of alcohol poisoning. Nobody called for help. He was found unresponsive at about 8:44 that morning.

Arizona's own hazing law was written for exactly that moment. It protects a person who promptly and in good faith reports a medical emergency caused by hazing: that person may not be charged with or prosecuted for hazing. The law was built to get the call made, and at 3 a.m. it was not made. The person convicted was not in the house. The people who were in the house were not in that courtroom. The family's attorney said it plainly: "What the family wants is to know what happened, and we still don't know that."

And there is one more question the record raises and does not answer. Knowingly making a false report to law enforcement is its own crime in Arizona, a misdemeanor. A sitting judge said from the bench that people "flat out lied to police" in a death investigation. The record shows nobody charged with that either. Maybe the State could not prove who said what, and the prosecutor's own words point at exactly that problem. But it is a fair question to put to the Coconino County Attorney's Office: was it ever considered?

That is the hole in the middle of this case, and the sentencing could not fill it. A sentencing is not built to. It decides what happens to the person who pleaded guilty. It does not investigate everyone else. But the people in that courtroom pointed at the hole repeatedly, from every side: the prosecutor, the defense, the family's attorney and the judge herself. When the defense lawyer, the prosecutor and the judge all describe "others" on the record, the public is entitled to keep asking what happened to that part of the story.

Here is where the record leaves it. The investigation, the family's attorney said, continues. There is a separate civil effort, mentioned by both the prosecutor and defense counsel, to seek accountability from others through the civil courts. And the only person convicted has promised, on the record, to help the family's attorneys in that pursuit. That promise might turn out to be the most important thing he said in that courtroom.

Question four: was prison ever really possible, and should it have been?

Some people will look at this sentence and ask why a death produced a probation case at all. The record answers that directly, and the answer starts with the statute.

The legislature made hazing resulting in death a probation-eligible offense. The prosecutor told the court that even if a jury had convicted Eslick at trial, the judge would still have had discretion to sentence him to probation. Prison, in his words, "was never something that could be demanded."

So when people ask whether the plea deal let Eslick off easy, look at what the deal actually gave him. He pleaded guilty as charged, to the exact offense the grand jury returned. He did not plead down to something lesser. What he got was certainty: a guarantee of probation, which the law may well have given him anyway. The family friend, himself an attorney, conceded the benefit was "small."

And the State's decision not to seek prison rested on three inputs it named on the record: a family that never sought it, an investigating detective and a county attorney's office that agreed prison was not appropriate, and mitigating factors that the judge herself later found to be real. You can disagree with that decision. But the reasons are not hidden. They were said out loud, in open court, which is exactly where they belong.

The harder question is about the law itself. The judge drew the distinction plainly: Eslick is "not charged with killing Colin." He is charged with hazing that carried a grave risk and resulted in a death. That is a deliberate choice by the people who wrote the law, to punish the dangerous conduct and treat the death as the consequence that raises it to a felony. Whether a Class 4 felony with probation eligibility is the right weight for a hazing death is a question for the legislature, not for a judge in Flagstaff. This hearing does not answer it. It does show you exactly what the current law produces when it is applied by a judge who clearly wanted it to mean something.

Question five: was it really a "celebration"?

One more thing, and it is the moment in this hearing I would push back on hardest.

The family friend who spoke for the defense told the court that when he heard about that night, it was different from what he had pictured. Nobody yelling, nobody angry, nobody in anyone's face. He called it "more of a celebratory congratulations hazing event." He was explicit that he did not mean it as an excuse, and I take him at his word that he believed it was perspective the court should hear.

But listen to how the State and the judge described the same event. A game in which the more you drank, the less your fellow pledge had to drink. A game the judge said "expected pledges... to drink to the point of oblivion." A room in which 35 members wanted another round. A night that ended with an 18-year-old drinking "significant and ultimately fatal amounts of alcohol."

The friendliness of the room is not the mitigation it sounds like. If anything, it is the problem. Pressure does not need anyone yelling. A game designed so that loyalty means drinking more, played in a room full of older members cheering, is pressure built into the rules. The judge named it: "the intense pressure to fit in, pressure to belong." The family named it: "group loyalty." Nobody has to be angry for an 18-year-old to feel he cannot say no.

And that is exactly what makes hazing so hard to stop. The people doing it often truly believe they are welcoming someone. The father of the defendant put it best of anyone in the room, which surprised me: "harmful behaviors disguised as tradition."

Where this leaves us

Here is what the record establishes, and nothing more. Carter Eslick, 20, the pledge master, supplied the vodka and gave the rules for a drinking game at a pledge event on January 30, 2026. Colin Martinez, 18, died January 31. Eslick admitted it the day it happened, pleaded guilty as charged, and stood alone at sentencing. He received three years of probation, the maximum one year of jail with all but 60 days suspended, and a way to earn the rest off one judge-approved anti-hazing presentation at a time. He may not drink, may not contact the family, must complete treatment, and cannot finish probation until the jail or the presentations are done.

The prosecutor told the court the State knows others were involved, believes people covered up for themselves and their friends, and could not prove it. The judge told the defendant he is not solely responsible, that he stands alone partly because he was honest while others lied to police, and that it does not change what he owes. The family's attorney told the court the family still does not know what happened.

I think the judge got the sentence right for the man in front of her. It is the maximum the law allowed, structured around exactly what Colin's family asked for, and it will demand more of Eslick, publicly and repeatedly, than a quiet year in a cell would have. What she handed down is a debt with Colin's story attached to it.

But I do not think the case is finished, and neither did anyone in that courtroom. A judge does not say "and yet you stand here alone" about a case that is closed. A prosecutor does not say "we know there were others involved" about a story that is complete. The hours after 11 p.m. on January 30, the hours that decided whether Colin Martinez lived, were never walked through in that courtroom, and nobody who was in the house at 3 a.m. has answered for them in any courtroom. Those are the hours Chris Martinez was talking about when he said that courage was not there.

His last words to the court are the right place to end. Colin cannot come back. "But his life can still demand something from the rest of us. It can demand courage. It can demand that when another human being is vulnerable, we act."

That demand did not end with this sentence.

I take the two questions this hearing left open, the honest man who stands alone and the hours after 3 a.m. when nobody called, straight into my own commentary, built on the courtroom footage, and it goes up this afternoon. The full hearing goes up first, every word of it, so you can watch what I watched and judge it for yourself. Both live in one playlist. Tell me in the comments: did Judge Krueger get it right? And what should happen next for the part of this story nobody has answered?

▶️ WATCH THE FULL SENTENCING HEARING · LIVE 11:40 AM ET, OCT 2 NAU Frat Pledge Master Sentenced in Colin Martinez Hazing Death as Judge Says Others Lied to Police ▶️ JUSTICE'S COMMENTARY · LIVE 1:40 PM ET, OCT 2 Why Is the Honest Pledge Master the Only One Charged in the NAU Hazing Death of Colin Martinez? ▶️ THE FULL PLAYLIST NAU Hazing Death: AZ v. Carter Eslick