At 22, Chris Young was sentenced to life in federal prison. At 37, he graduated Saturday from Dallas’ Southern Methodist University.
By Jamie Landers
Dallas Morning News
https://www.dallasnews.com/
Standing Saturday in front of a full-length mirror in the living room of his Dallas apartment, Chris Young readied himself for a reunion.
He fastened silver cuff links and a crimson tie to a crisp white button-down, and while he wouldn’t take the stage at Southern Methodist University for another hour, he donned his navy gown and silk stole for the elevator ride anyway.
On the other side of the front doors, Kevin Sharp was waiting in front of a black SUV. They’re hugging before Young ever leaves the threshold.
“You look better in blue than you did in orange,” Sharp, 63, quipped.
“Not my style,” Young, 37, replied.
They climbed into the back of the Cadillac Escalade, where Sharp had a handwritten card propped up on the cup holders.
“This is crazy,” Young said, opening the pale green envelope. “Man, the journey we’ve had.”
“And you’re not done.” Sharp responded.
Before Sharp flew from San Diego to Dallas to attend Young’s college graduation, he sentenced Young to life in prison without the possibility of parole — two times over.
On its face, Saturday was a celebration of the early mornings and late nights Young spent earning his degree in economics and public policy, the kind of credibility he knew only a diploma could provide. At its best, it was a chance to mark Young’s liberation, a milestone made possible not only by the courage it requires to admit to ones mistakes, but to believe it’s never too late make it right.
Because long before Young walked across a university stage, it was the education he gave himself, in the confines of a county jail, that finally set him free.
Castaway
Young grew up in the south side of Clarksville, Tenn., born without a father and to a mother consumed by a crack cocaine addiction.
Young grew up in the south side of Clarksville, Tenn., born without a father and to a mother consumed by a crack cocaine addiction.
He was gambling and selling drugs by the time he turned 15. In those days, he said, money was status and survival. He compares it to being a castaway at sea, surrounded by salt water. You know you shouldn’t drink it, that there will be consequences, but you need it to survive, and eventually, you give in.
Young was arrested for the first time at 18, pulled over with a quarter-ounce of crack in his car. The second was about a year later, when Young said police had to scrape the carpet of his car to find something worth detaining him over.
At 22, Young was arrested for the third time, swept up in a raid that would cap off a yearlong drug trafficking investigation he said he had no part in until he ended up in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.
Knowing what he was up against, Young’s lawyer advised him to take a plea deal and serve 14 years, but he refused. The case went to trial — overseen by U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Sharp.
After Young was convicted, and the indignation let up just enough to make room for something more, he started reading. He felt invigorated, spending entire days immersed in stories of growth and redemption, and studying everything from philosophy to American history and quantum physics.
It was in those pages, Young said, that he started to understand what he calls “the power of choice.”
Well before his sentencing, Young decided he wanted to show Judge Sharp what he’d learned. He wrote a speech, 45 minutes long, and knowing he couldn’t bring notes into the courtroom, Young memorized every word.
He told Sharp about his devotion to the library, how it taught him what no one else had ever bothered to mention: That Black men could be remembered for more than the money they made and how far they were willing to go to get it. They could be elected to Congress and write best-selling books and run companies from corner offices.
Sharp had never seen anything like it. Most people, he said, would speak for a few minutes, begrudgingly apologizing for something he’s not sure they could even define.
To put off the inevitable, Sharp suggested a few more books for Young to add to his list. “Keep talking to me,” he recalled thinking. “Keep going. Because when you stop, I have to tell you how this ends.”
Because of a “three strikes” provision that mandates life behind bars for repeat offenders, Sharp condemned Young to two life sentences. He would die in a maximum-security prison.
Two years later, Sharp stepped down from his lifetime appointment as a judge, citing Young’s case as a catalyst.
“We were just grinding up young, Black men,” Sharp told The Dallas Morning News. “We were turning potential assets into liabilities. And none of it made any sense.”
Sharp wanted to help, but with no experience on this side of the system, he didn’t know where to start.
Young’s lawyer, Brittany K. Barnett, already had a plan.
Unconditional
The thing about sharing your story, as widely as Young has over the years, is you lose control of the narrative, your message lost to interpretation. So Young wants to be clear: His is not a story of luck or wishes made on falling stars. This is about rigor and grit. It’s hope, persevering.
Barnett, a Dallas lawyer and SMU law graduate, worked toward Young’s release for four years before he got the chance to start anew. He credits her tireless advocacy for earning his case national attention from journalists to politicians, and even Kim Kardashian, who has used her celebrity stature and resources to help free more than a dozen federal inmates just like him.
It took longer than they’d hoped, but in 2021, after a decade behind bars, President Donald Trump granted Young clemency.
“What Chris’ story shows,” Barnett explained, “is what happens when opportunity, preparation and discipline meet.”
After his graduation from her alma mater, alongside a crowd of his relatives and some of the men he considered brothers in prison, Young joined Barnett at a gala for her organization, Manifest Freedom. The nonprofit offers fellowships and grants to entrepreneurs who have been directly impacted by the criminal justice system.
May marks 10 years since Barnett resigned from her job as a corporate lawyer to dedicate her life to this work. She has since freed more than 70 people serving life sentences across three administrations.
Those clients, people she now considers family, came from Washington D.C., Los Angeles and Miami to attend the black-tie event, bonding over shared experience at roundtables adorned with vases of white lilies.
They stood centerstage and delivered speech after speech about all the ways Barnett had not only saved their lives, but helped make something of them.
Unbeknownst to Young, Barnett had plans to honor him, too.
At the end of a speech of her own, applause echoed her praise of Young’s graduation, which Barnett called “living proof that the system never has the final word.”
She directed his attention to a nearby screen, where a video began with a slideshow of photos of Young as a child, then a teen. Soon there’s footage from the parking lot on the night of his final arrest, and more from the day of his release, dragging a trash bag full of books behind him.
The first cameo was from Kardashian, congratulating him on a job well done. Sharp, who couldn’t attend the event, appeared too, reflecting on the lives he said Young’s humanity has changed for the better, his included.
“That’s your true legacy,” Sharp said. “That’s what I’m most proud of; to be associated with you, to know you, to love you.”
Young cried as audio recorded by the friends he left behind in prison came through the speakers. They spoke of his graduation with awe, bereft they couldn’t see it for themselves.
When Young joined Barnett on stage, he tossed rehearsed remarks for an improvised address on unconditional love: “Adversity is a good progenitor of camaraderie,” he said.
Young’s birthday wasn’t for another two weeks, but Barnett couldn’t help herself, so by the time he was ready to hand over the mic, six men were rolling out a three-tiered cake into the middle of the ballroom.
There is so much more Barnett could have said about the years the system stole from Young. But on this night, in a room full of people who love him, all she wants to do is celebrate his life.
Jamie Landers is the senior breaking news reporter at The Dallas Morning News. She is a graduate of The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix, where she studied journalism and political science. Jamie previously reported for The Arizona Republic and Arizona PBS.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
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