The man convicted of running D.C.’s “largest and most destructive narcotics distribution operation” could find his way out of federal prison early, but not before D.C. residents have a chance to weigh in on what his crimes meant to the city.

Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to reduce the life sentence being served by Rayful Edmond III, who was convicted in 1990 for running a cocaine-trafficking operation on a two-block strip just south of Florida Avenue NE. Despite having brought in thousands of pounds of Colombian cocaine into the city over a four-year period in the late 1980s, prosecutors say Edmond has since offered significant cooperation in other drug prosecutions.

Prosecutors have not yet specified what type of sentence reduction they are offering Edmond—who is now 54 years old—but clarified during a hearing on Tuesday that it would not be immediate release from federal prison, where he has been for almost three decades.

But before any decision is made on Edmond’s fate, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan wants D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine to collect public input on the impact of his crimes on the city and its residents.

“One of the questions the court started pondering is to what extent should the right of the victims be considered?” said Sullivan. “That’s a very difficult question. Who are the victims? Are they identifiable? Could the victim be considered to be the District of Columbia?”

Sullivan was referring to the fact that while homicides and other violent crimes were often associated with drug trafficking operations like the one Edmond ran, he was never charged with any violent crimes or homicides—only drug trafficking offenses.

But given the scale of the trafficking enterprise, Sullivan wondered whether some type of victims could be found to offer insights into how Edmond impacted the city.

“What should the court consider? Suppose there’s a young person whose parent died from a drug overdose in the 1990s,” he said.

Sullivan’s request was also novel in that it left the task to Racine’s office, which does not prosecute violent offenses committed by adults and did not play a role in the federal prosecution of Edmond. And it was opposed by the federal prosecutors seeking Edmond’s early release from prison.

“This is unusual in every respect,” said John Crabb, the deputy chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District. “It’s the U.S. Attorney’s office that should represent the public.”

But Sullivan disagreed.

“What’s the impact on the citizen of the District?” he asked of Edmond’s crimes. “How could the federal government pretend to represent that?”

Sullivan’s request drew praise from Racine, who became the city’s first elected attorney general in 2014 and was elected to a second term last year.

“What happened today is truly historic,” said Racine after the hearing. “A federal district judge determined that in order for him to have full information in regards to the sentencing in a federal adult criminal case he needed to reach out and indeed enlist the office of attorney general to obtain that information. This is a significant development.”

Racine said his office plans on organizing public meetings where D.C. residents can weigh in on Edmond and the crimes he was convicted of. After that, his office will submit a report to Sullivan in mid-September, and a formal hearing on the request for a sentence reduction for Edmond will take place in October. Resident input won’t prescribe Sullivan’s finding, but would offer him something else to consider when deciding on sentence reduction.

Sullivan told federal prosecutors to detail exactly what type of sentence reduction they would offer Edmond within the next three weeks.

“We’re hoping Mr. Edmond sees freedom as soon as possible,” said Jason Downs, an attorney for Edmond, after the hearing. “What is public is that Mr. Edmond has tried to make amends. He’s cooperated with the federal government for two decades and provided so much information that the federal government deemed it necessary to tell the court he should be released early.”

But even if Sullivan does grant the request for some type of early release, Edmond will still have to make the same request of federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania, where he was convicted of running a drug trafficking operation while serving his sentence for his D.C. conviction. That 30-year sentence runs consecutively to Edmond’s current life sentence, which means it would begin after that sentence is completed.

“Today was just another step in the right direction to hopefully securing freedom for Mr. Edmond at some point in the near future,” Downs said.

This story originally appeared on WAMU.