An ex-drug dealer who had his sentence commuted by former President Barack Obama is now accused of being involved in a shooting in Chicago, Illinois.
According to police, 54-year-old Alton Mills is facing three attempted murder charges.
The New York Post noted that Mills was granted clemency several years ago.
The incident occurred on Sunday when the suspect allegedly fired at another vehicle while driving across an Interstate 57 ramp in the Chicago village of Posen.
According to officials, the passenger in the victim’s car was shot and suffered life-threatening injuries.
In 2016, Obama commuted Mills’ life sentence after the man spent over two decades behind bars.
The Post reported that Mills “was convicted in 1994 on federal charges as part of a crack cocaine conspiracy.”
The outlet continued:
The then-25-year-old Mills had two previous convictions of possession of fewer than five grams of crack cocaine, prompting prosecutors to file a sentence enhancement to lock him in prison without the possibility of parole, according to a previous news release from the Pritzker School of Law at Northwestern University.
Obama chose Mills as one of 95 non-violent federal inmates “who were sentenced at the height of the war on drugs and would likely receive substantially lower sentences today” to have their sentences commuted as part of a clemency initiative.
Obama was cutting short sentences given to over 200 convicted felons in 2016, exercising his constitutional clemency power.
“The White House boasted that this was the largest mass commutation since 1900,” the article stated.
“That brings the total number of Obama’s grants of clemency to 562, which is more than all the presidents since Dwight Eisenhower (nine presidents) combined.”
Before Mills was released from prison, the case was brought to light by several politicians, including Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), noting he advocated for a prison reform bill.
During a speech from 2018, Durbin talked about Mills on the Senate floor:
“He was an above-average high school student. It looked like he might even go on to higher education. But he had some bad luck when it came to employment, jobs, and he made a stupid decision,” Durbin said, adding he became part of a “gang in the neighborhood that was selling drugs.”
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Durbin shared an interview with Mills in 2016, saying, “An overlooked casualty in America’s ‘war on drugs’ are the men and women who have received disproportionately harsh mandatory minimum sentences for low-level, nonviolent drug offenses.”
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