Illinois man serving life for drug conviction under ‘three-strikes’ law is granted clemency, arrives in Chicago
Michael Lightfoot walked out of prison in downstate Danville, took in the view of trees and cars, then hugged his niece.
The 67-year-old spent much of his later adult life incarcerated after a drug conviction for possessing 6 grams of cocaine landed him in prison for life — a seemingly hopeless end to years of struggle against addiction.
But Lightfoot walked free for the first time in two decades this week after Gov. J.B. Pritzker granted him clemency, undoing his life sentence and ordering his release.
“It was wonderful,” he said by phone from reentry housing on the West Side. “It was something I hadn’t experienced in 20 years.”
He was one of three people in Illinois still serving life sentences for drug offenses due to the so-called “three-strikes” law, which allows prosecutors to seek a life sentence when someone is convicted of their third serious felony, according to data from the Illinois Department of Corrections and Lightfoot’s attorney.
Pritzker granted clemency to all three prisoners who were released this week, turning a page in the history of mass incarceration in Illinois.
“There is nobody serving a life sentence for a drug case in Illinois,” said Jennifer Soble, who represented Lightfoot. “It’s a pretty big deal.”
Advocates for criminal justice reform, though, point out that the three-strikes law is still on the books, contending that it’s a draconian measure disproportionately affecting people of color. Lawmakers earlier this year proposed a bill that would fully abolish the statute and create a path for people convicted under old versions of the law to seek a new sentence, but it has yet to gain traction by the state legislature.
“I do think this really signifies a recognition that … this kind of sentencing is really egregious and completely inconsistent with our values and morals and what we know about the racist application of the criminal legal system,” Soble said of the clemency grants.
Pritzker’s office released a statement to the Tribune that said the “work continues the Governor’s ongoing efforts to make sure our criminal justice system is rooted in equity.”
“From eliminating cash bail to expunging hundreds of thousands of cannabis records, the Governor is committed to reform and will continue to evaluate clemency petitions based on their merits,” the statement read.
Lightfoot, whose story was featured in the Tribune last September, received a mandatory life sentence in 2005 on a drug charge he picked up while living in the Champaign-Urbana area.
He fought an addiction on and off, drinking alcohol starting in grammar school and later becoming addicted to heroin, he said. He was previously convicted of robbing a drugstore in 1976, a case consolidated with other possession charges and a bribery charge, and of five consolidated drug cases in 1986 — the two prior cases that amounted to his first two “strikes.”
He served time in prison and made an effort to change. He went to cooking school and moved to Champaign to be closer to his sons, he told the Tribune.
But he said he relapsed when lack of affordable housing meant he moved in with people who used crack cocaine.
According to court records, Urbana police in 2004 executed a search warrant on Lightfoot’s home and found $702 and about 6 grams of the drug. He was convicted of possession with intent to deliver within 500 feet of a park, as his home was located near one, making the charge a Class X felony.
It was his third strike.
Prosecutors sought the habitual offender designation, and a judge handed down the mandatory life sentence. Lightfoot’s clemency petition noted that more than 1,200 people convicted of first-degree murder in Illinois received more lenient sentences.
“For me to have a small amount of drugs and have as much time as a serial killer, I think that is unbelievable,” Lightfoot told the Tribune last year, speaking from Menard Correctional Center in Chester.
Lightfoot has fought for clemency for years, the only legal recourse he had available to him. He waited, hoping to survive the height of the COVID-19 pandemic behind bars as the spread of the virus caused court backlogs across the country.
“I’m not bitter about it,” he said, reflecting after his release. “Just happy to be out.”
Though the SAFE-T Act tightened some circumstances defendants must meet to be considered a habitual offender, the law remains active. And more defendants in Illinois are serving life sentences for nondrug offenses under the three-strikes law, including Michael’s brother, Henry Lightfoot, who is also seeking clemency.
The bill, proposed in February, called for abolishing the three-strikes statute and would allow defendants a way to petition to be resentenced, rather than solely relying on the clemency process.
“You can’t count on clemency,” Soble said. It “should be a very routine and normal part of the criminal justice system, but at this point in history it’s not a thing to bet on.”
Soble, executive director of the Illinois Prison Project, said the group handled the clemency petitions for the other two people serving life sentences for drugs. All three are Black or Latino, she said.
“All of those cases come out of different counties, so it’s really showing the pervasive use of this law,” she said.
Henry Lightfoot was one of the first people Michael spoke with on the phone after he was released. He’s still holding out hope that his brother is next.
“It’s my turn now, but he should be coming home soon,” Lightfoot said. “I’m not giving up on him.”
In the meantime, Lightfoot is navigating modern life on the outside for the first time since the early 2000s. He secured a cellphone and was able to set it up.
On the way home from Danville, he watched as his niece pulled up driving directions on GPS, the first time he had seen such a thing.
“Get on 57,” he told her, “and go straight to Chicago.”
