President Obama issued today 102 more commutations of people serving federal prison sentences on drug charges. One of them was convicted in Arkansas.
The president’s commutation for Lancell Maurice Harris of Little Rock will put the end of his prison term Feb. 3. He’d been convicted of two counts of possession cocaine with intent to distribute and carrying a firearm during a drug crime in December 1993 and sentenced to 421 months, or 35 years, in prison. Subsequent amendments to his sentence, because of changes in sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine convictions, had reduced his time to 30 years in prison. The commutation lops almost another seven years off. He’s an inmate at the federal prison in Texarkana.
The ACLU noted that the list included Ricky Minor, the subject of a report about people serving life without parole sentences for non-violent drug offenses.
Obama has now commuted 774 sentences, more than the last 11 presidents combined, Talking Points Memo said.