“In 2013, right before Christmas, you gave me a gift that changed my life and my family forever. You granted my petition for clemency and reduced my sentence of life without parole for a nonviolent drug charge to 20 years.
“And although words can’t illustrate what I felt the moment I was told I was not going to die in prison as I had been sentenced to in 1998, my feelings of joy quickly transformed into sorrow and guilt when I returned to my prison cell and faced my friends serving life sentences. I had to convey to them that I was going home and was not going to die in prison, while I thought to myself, it more than likely they would. As I cried to them they told me not to worry, because the president was just getting started and you would grant them their freedom one day soon.”