THIS IS MY STORY: DAMON THOMAS

As someone who has spent decades incarcerated, hearing stories of men and women being locked up becomes commonplace, but not when you learn about Damon Thomas. He and I met on Nottoway Correction Center. A young Black man, who always convinced me to spend my money on hip hop songs, because of our shared joy in music. This was our origin story, but as we grew our friendship, our lives on the outside came to be known to each other, and that's where things changed.

You see, Damon was sentenced to 20 years for a Burglary: Entering a Structure To Commit Larceny. Now, as someone incarcerated, once you share your past deeds that led to being in prison, questions come: "Were you high on drugs?" "Did you get pressured into committing your crime because of your friends?" As I asked, he shared that he was homeless at the time and trying to feed his daughter.

His home life, like most young Black men in America, was that of a single-parent home. Ms. Thomas, Damon's mother, was raising six of his siblings alone. His father, a deadbeat Dad, even told Damon no when asking for financial assistance. So instead of heading to his parents for help, he decided to allow the streets to send him into one bad choice after the next.

For full transparency, I questioned Damon on whether he's been in trouble with the law before. The answer was yes, and as a juvenile, he spent time in the system for the crime of 2nd Degree Murder. That made me really look at him as a problem child. We all would...but he served his time and got out.

As a young Black man, life is filled with tough choices, and they're always tougher when nobody with a good head on their shoulder gives you the guidance you desperately need. So, from juvenile detention, back to a family that didn't give the tools to help a young Black man develop, the streets were the obvious choice.

This all came to a head when Damon's 7-month-old daughter unexpectedly passed away. Coming home to that bit of news would crush any parent. Still, he had his oldest daughter who has Down syndrome. He would do anything for her, and that's where bad decisions come into play.

Being out in a world where nobody gives you a bed to lie down at night, Damon ended up in a homeless shelter. Sleeping there, he started thinking about getting back on his feet--and that's where he and his friend decided to break into a store and steal an ATM machine.

They had no guns, just some tools to get into the store and out with the ATM machine. It didn't go as planned, and both were apprehended. Once inside a jail cell, Damon began thinking that it was time to do something different. So, when he met his court-appointed lawyer, he wanted the best deal he could get so he could get back home to his daughter.

His lawyer, whom he later learned was reprimanded for stealing money from a client, convinced Damon to take a deal that would get him 4 years and 8 months; the sentencing guidelines for Commercial Burglary were between 1 to 6 years. The prosecuting lawyer did a midpoint on the charge and sent it over for Damon to sign; he did, but the problem was the presiding judge, James Plowman accepted the deal...but never sentenced Damon. Another judge did.

Judge James P. Fisher, who, I might add, has an interesting back story. He placed a woman who testified that her boyfriend punched her in the face two times in jail for 10 days because he felt she was high on marijuana. He even placed a lawyer in jail over her not understanding a motion he tossed out. This can all be read online (WUSA 9 CBS News). Now Damon had him at his sentencing judge.

He walked into court with a 4-year plea agreement, but Judge Fisher looked at Damon's juvenile history--which only appeared on record for a misdemeanor probation violation--and called him a violent man. So, to keep the citizens of Virginia safe, Judge Fisher over-sentenced Damon to a 20-year bid. Twenty years for a nonviolent crime, where nobody was hurt. Just property damage.

Damon has spent nearly 4 years incarcerated. He sees things differently, yes, great even, but at 37 years of age, he'll be in his 50s before ever seeing the free world again. How is that even possible when he agreed to a plea of 4 years, 8 months?

As most Black men come into the world of mass incarceration, eyes are being opened to how the system screws them. Lock them up, and forget about them. I can't let that happen, not when a travesty of this magnitude reaches my ears.

Damon started out with a bad hand, but that doesn't mean we throw it away. We work on it, and we give him the guidance that he should've received the first time. But that doesn't matter right now. What does is that we're seeing our young Black men and women being placed in unhealthy environments and we're saying good luck. That shouldn't be the case, especially when we're talking about a nonviolent crime.

Look, I'm someone who took a plea deal for my crimes, because I deserved--at the time--to be locked away and forgotten. But working on making amends has changed me in ways that I can see that Damon isn't a bad person, just a bad decision maker. I developed my life into something great, and so can he. All it takes is someone willing enough to care. That's it.

So again, Damon is a son, a brother, a cousin, a friend and so on. He's that son you're hugging at night. That's Damon. Not some kid who should be locked away for 20 years on a nonviolent crime by a judge who took it upon himself to say, lock him up and throw away the key.

Damon Thomas needs to be home now. He did his time on that plea deal that the prosecuting lawyer and Judge Plowman agreed upon. So, he needs to be released now. Right now. Free Damon Thomas. Free him now.