On Tuesday, President Obama shortened the sentence of a man convicted of a drug offense who would have been forced to spend an extra three and a half years in prison due to a typographical error.

Ceasar Huerta Cantu of Katy, Texas was sentenced to 15 years in prison back in 2006 by a federal court in Virginia after pleading guilty to money laundering and trafficking marijuana, reports Raw Story. However, because of a typographical error in his pre-sentence report, he was issued a penalty that exceed the 180-month punishment term that is mandated under U.S. sentencing guidelines.

According to USA Today, sentencing guidelines placed those offenses at level 34, but an error listed them at level 36, which meant that Cantu was sentenced to an additional 42 months behind bars.

A federal judge acknowledged the numerical error but denied a motion to correct it in March 2013 because the one-year statute of limitations had expired, according to a court opinion. As a result, President Obama stepped in to commute the convict's prison term since it could not be fixed by the courts.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president acted because a judge had ruled that the clerical error was not discovered in time to correct it.

"A judge ruled that Mr. Cantu did not discover this error in time to correct it through any judicial means," said Carney, according to the LA Times. "As a result, it can now only be rectified through clemency. The president thought it was the right thing to do to commute his sentence."

Instead of 15 years in jail, Cantu will now serve 11 and a half years in prison.