A man from Evergreen Park, Illinois, who had his federal life sentence commuted by former President Barack Obama in 2015, now faces charges of attempted murder in connection with a recent shooting on Interstate 57.
Alton Mills, 54, has been charged with three counts of attempted murder and is currently being held without bond at the Cook County Jail, according to a news release by the Illinois State Police on Friday.
Authorities stated that Mills was arrested in relation to a shooting incident that took place on Sunday near the northbound entrance ramp of I-57 from 147th Street in Posen. During the incident, multiple shots were fired into the victim’s vehicle from the suspect’s vehicle, resulting in a back seat passenger being struck. The injured individual was immediately transported to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries.
The recent charges against Mills come after his previous arrest in 1993 on federal conspiracy charges related to a crack cocaine conspiracy. Due to two prior convictions for possessing less than five grams of crack cocaine, prosecutors applied a sentence enhancement that led to Mills receiving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
This information was revealed in a previous news release from the Pritzker School of Law at Northwestern University. However, in 2015, during the Obama administration, a clemency initiative was launched for federal inmates, specifically targeting non-violent, low-level offenders who had received lengthy sentences during the “war on drugs” era and were likely to receive significantly shorter sentences under current laws.
U.S. Senator Dick Durbin highlighted Mills’ case on the Senate floor while advocating for prison reform and wrote a letter to President Obama in support of a petition for commutation. As a result, Mills’ sentence was commuted in December 2015, and he was released from prison in early 2016 after serving 22 years.
The recent charges against Mills highlight the complexities surrounding criminal justice reform and the debate over granting clemency to individuals with prior convictions. The legal proceedings will continue as Mills faces the charges of attempted murder, shedding light on the delicate balance between criminal justice reform and public safety.
