CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (CLARKSVILLENOW) – Chris Young, a 32-year-old Clarksville man serving time for his role in a 2010 drug conspiracy, had his sentence commuted by President Donald Trump on Tuesday night.
Young’s commutation was part of the President’s string of actions on his last full day in office, which granted pardons to 73 individuals and commuted the sentences of an additional 70.
In 2010, a collaborative investigation among the DEA, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Clarksville Police Department, with assistance from other agencies, resulted in the arrest of Young, who was 22 years old at the time.
Including Young, 32 people in the Clarksville area were charged in what U.S. Attorney David Rivera called “a large-scale drug trafficking conspiracy tied to gangs and guns.”
Young’s case went to trial in 2013. He was convicted on charges of conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine and 280 grams or more of crack cocaine, attempted possession of cocaine with intent to distribute within 1,000 feet of a school, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
He pleaded guilty to being a convicted felon possessing a firearm. Due to mandatory minimum sentencing and the three-strikes law for federal convictions, Young was sentenced in 2014 to life in prison without parole.
In 2018, Kim Kardashian West began advocating for Trump to grant Young a pardon. Her efforts during the Trump administration to champion criminal justice reform also resulted in then-Gov. Bill Haslam in 2019 granting clemency to Cyntoia Brown, a Tennessee woman who was convicted of first-degree murder as a teenager after killing a man who paid to have sex with her.
Here is the statement from the White House press secretary on Young’s commutation:
President Trump commuted the remaining sentence of Chris Young. This commutation is supported by the Honorable Kevin H. Sharp, Mr. Young’s sentencing judge, former law enforcement officials and Federal prosecutors, and multitudes of criminal justice reform advocates, including Alice Johnson, Kevin Ring, Jessica Jackson Sloan, Topeka Sam, Amy Povah, the Aleph Institute, Mark Holden, Doug Deason, and David Safavian, among others. Mr. Young, who is 32 years old, has served over 10 years of a 14 year sentence for his role in a drug conspiracy. Although initially sentenced to a mandatory life sentence that Judge Sharp called “not appropriate in any way, shape, or form,” Mr. Young has made productive use of his time in prison by taking courses and learning coding skills. He also has maintained a spotless disciplinary record. Mr. Young’s many supporters describe him as an intelligent, positive person who takes full responsibility for his actions and who lacked a meaningful first chance in life due to what another Federal judge called an “undeniably tragic childhood.” With this commutation, President Trump provides Mr. Young with a second chance.
The former federal judge who presided over Young’s trial, Kevin H. Sharp, has said repeatedly that Young’s sentencing was “cruel and unjust” due to the minimum sentencing mandates.
“I’ve thought about it a lot over the years since, a seven- or eight-year sentence max is probably what he deserves,” Sharp said in an interview with Nashville’s NewsChannel 5 in 2018.