David Plowden, a federal public defender, got a bit of welcome news Friday.
President Obama cut the sentence of Stone Mountain’s Ernest Mordeau Deas, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to deal cocaine in 2006. Plowden represented him.
The president's action for Deas was part of his latest batch of commutations for drug offenders, many of whom were sentenced under strict laws that have since been relaxed. The list of 102 inmates also included a Dalton man, Randy Patterson, who was convicted of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.
Both Georgia men, who are only the latest from the state to make the lists, are now set to be released in October 2018.
“President Obama, in my opinion, is doing the right thing,” Plowden said Friday in a phone call with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The attorney always thought the 20-year sentence was "patently unfair."
That was the mandatory minimum available to the judge on the case, thanks to legislation passed as part of a peak in the War on Drugs.
Deas was only one of the people charged in the case and, as the attorney recalls, a smaller player than others who received the same sentence.
“He was devastated,going to prison for 20 years,” Plowden said. “I was extremely sympathetic to him. In situations like this, you feel pretty impotent.”
Obama has granted hundred of commutations, more than any other president.
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