During his final moments in office, Joe Biden gave his spoiled criminal of a son, Hunter, a get-out-of-jail-free card. We've all seen what good that's done.
On the last day of Donald Trump's first term, he did something a little more thoughtful.
He commuted a young man's life sentence after he'd served just 13 years. That man is now proving that what the president did was not in vain.
Chris Young was born and raised in Clarksville, Tenn., in a situation that wasn't easy. He never met his father or even saw a picture of him, and his mother was severely addicted to crack cocaine. His brother committed suicide at the age of 21. Chris himself suffered from sickle cell anemia and, due to his lack of real parenting, basically had to take care of himself from a young age.
His family lived in extreme poverty. They often went for long periods without water or electricity. There was no stability. No money. So, when he was a teenager, Chris turned to selling drugs to stay alive. He was arrested twice as a teenager for non-violent drug offenses. In 2010, around the age of 22, he was arrested again as part of a federal drug investigation in Clarksville.
A jury convicted him of conspiracy to distribute 500+ grams of cocaine and 280+ grams of crack cocaine, attempted possession with intent to distribute within 1,000 feet of a school (he was arrested near the Genesis Teen Learning Center), and fire-arm related charges. Because he already had two felonies under his belt, he met the requirements for the federal "three strikes" mandatory minimum laws, and U.S. District Judge Kevin Sharp was forced to sentence him to two consecutive life sentences without parole. After spending about four years in a county jail awaiting trial, he was transferred to a federal prison where he presumed he'd spend the rest of his life. He was around 26 at the time.
"I didn't sell drugs because I thought it was cool," he said during a recent interview. "I sold drugs because I thought it was the thing I needed to do to escape poverty."
Chris was what you might call a model prisoner. He had a clean disciplinary record. Despite the fact that prison conditions exacerbated his sickle cell anemia and often made him ill, he dedicated himself to self-improvement. He read. He studied economics, physics, history, and politics. He took courses. He learned everything from cooking to coding. Chris describes it as a time of deep intellectual growth that changed his worldview. He says he would often pretend he was away at college and created his own curriculum and imagined his jail cell was a dorm room filled with books.
Little did he know that he had some powerful people on his side who would eventually change his life. Judge Sharp, the man who had handed him that sentence, had resigned, in part, because he felt the mandatory "three strikes" law was unfair. But it was Chris specifically who had gotten to him. During his sentencing, Chris offered a powerful allocution that the judge said humanized the defendant and made him question sending him away forever. Chris said he spent months writing and memorizing the statement, which was 45 minutes long.
The story began getting news coverage and eventually reached attorney Brittany K. Barnett. She managed to get Chris a rare post-conviction motion that temporarily reduced his sentence to 14 years. Kim Kardashian also heard his story and began to advocate for him. This set things in motion for the White House to eventually learn about him and for Trump to agree to grant him clemency.
After leaving prison, Chris knew he couldn't waste his second chance and wanted to continue to better himself. He enrolled in Dallas College almost immediately, and he eventually transferred to Southern Methodist University (SMU), where he graduated this month at the age of 37 with a bachelor's degree in economics and public policy.
Chris didn't stop there. He's started a consulting firm, and his memoir, The Wound is Where the Light Enters, will be published in August. He also plans to get his MBA and become a stronger advocate for criminal justice reform. SMU professors also often have him speak to their classes.
When telling his story, he emphasizes the importance of personal responsibility, as well as the significance of second chances. He also says he doesn't take his freedom for granted. Something that stood out to me about this man is that he's never made excuses for himself. He is honest about his past and what he did. He owns his mistakes and worked hard to change the course of life, even knowing that he may never see anything beyond those prison walls again.
