I graduated from Roselin Community high school in 1987. I come from the best family that any person could want. My mother was a homemaker. My father was a member of the local union. My dad worked 40 years at a Chicago grocery store. I remember seeing him work every day to provide for us. We didn’t have much, but we had our fair share.

Alton Mills was not a drug kingpin. He wasn’t even a drug dealer.Alton was a street-level drug runner who picked up cash from drug spots and delivered the cash to his bosses. He then delivered crack cocaine when and where his boss told him. Alton was paid just $300 per week as a drug runner. He didn’t have a stash of jewelry. He didn’t own a home. He couldn’t even afford a lawyer to defend him Alton remembers the day he was arrested: I was riding in the back seat of the car with the FBI. They just kept repeating: help the government, or get a life sentence. Every time he said 'life sentence' – it seemed the car kept getting smaller. And smaller. And smaller."

In 1994, Alton stood before federal judge Marvin Aspen for punishment. Alton was 24 years old. He had never been to prison before. Federal prosecutors admitted “the thrust of the evidence against Mills was that Mills did whatever [the drug ringleader] told him to do.” Judge Aspen looked directly at Alton and reluctantly gave him a mandatory life sentence. Judge Marvin Aspen told the courtroom that Alton’s mandatory life sentence was "farcical"and “cruel". The judge told Alton he wanted the sentence to be “something other than life” but prosecutors used the 3 Strikes Law to require a life sentence.

Judge Aspen continues to criticize the 3 Strikes Drug Law:  “The problem I saw right from the beginning is that discretion never goes away in sentencing,” Aspen explains. “It was shifted away from the court, to prosecutors, who have discretion in how they charge.”