Political Quotes

“I would like to share with the Senate and those following this debate a story about a man named Alton Mills. Alton Mills was a young African American in the city of Chicago. 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 and jobs, and he made a stupid decision. He made a stupid decision by becoming part of a gang in the neighborhood that was selling drugs. As a result of that, he was arrested and convicted of the possession and sale of a small amount of narcotics. The sentence was suspended because he had had no previous criminal record. It happened a second time. Again, he didn't serve a day in jail. It was suspended with the promise that he would never do it again, but he stumbled and did it a third time. As a result of that, in 1994, at the age of 24, Alton Mills was given a mandatory sentence of life in prison. He had never been involved in a violent crime. He had never used a firearm, and he never was a drug kingpin but had been involved in the sale of drugs. At the age of 24, he received a life sentence for the three incidents I just mentioned. How could we have ever reached a point at which a person would be sent to jail for life for those three crimes? We reached that point because 25 years ago we did something that was just plain wrong. You will seldom hear a Senator say this in the course of a speech, but I am going to say it.…”