Pro Bono In Action
Two Consecutive Winston Wins Give Client Serving Life Sentence a Chance for a Life Outside of Prison
Pro Bono In Action
November 21, 2024
After winning an appeal in the Seventh Circuit to vacate our client’s sentence due to lack of effective counsel, a Winston team scored a second win at the resentencing hearing, which reduced our client’s sentence for a street-level drug conviction from life in prison to less than 20 years.
His reduced sentence is more than 10 years less than the sentencing guidelines recommended and what the federal prosecutor requested. As a result, rather than dying in prison, our client will be released in less than five years.
Born to a teenage mother and a father who was in prison, our client was raised in a housing project in one of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods. His life was filled with crime and violence. His father made a living robbing eighteen-wheeler trucks and dealing drugs. A family member playing with a gun accidentally shot his mother at close range in the chest. Additionally, when he was in the eighth grade, an uncle, who lived with him and was his classmate, died by suicide.
Our client was only 10 years old when his father was murdered in a drug dispute. Shortly afterward, he joined the Vice Lords and began selling cocaine.
In 2012, at the age of 33, our client was convicted and sentenced to mandatory life in prison for leading a cocaine trafficking ring that sold crack to customers in Kewanee, Illinois. By this time, he had been repeatedly arrested and convicted of crimes including selling cocaine, and he received the maximum sentence.
Despite being incarcerated at Big Sandy—a federal penitentiary rife with gangs and drug trafficking—our client chose to completely remove himself from his former life. While at Big Sandy, he earned his GED and completed more than 600 hours of additional coursework. Additionally, the six prison officials who wrote character letters for his resentencing hearing described him as a ”peace maker” and “a positive role model to other inmates.”
The Winston team that won this life-changing sentence reduction for our client included Katherine Bailey, Ken Berry, and Marc Krickbaum.
Winston’s representation in this matter is part of the firm’s Racial Justice & Equity CEASE Initiative.
