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Today Mike Parson commuted Dimetrious Woods& #39; sentence. I first interviewed Woods in 2016 over a prison phone line, and reported on his legal battles, release, and the MO supreme court& #39;s ruling to send him back to prison. This is Parson& #39;s first clemency. https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2020/04/22/dimetrious-woods-featured-in-the-riverfront-times-granted-clemency-by-gov-mike-parson">https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/...
It& #39;s hard to describe how incredible this is. Woods faced a return trip to prison **now**. He was serving 25 years on non-violent drug charges, and he (like 100s of others in Missouri) is barred from parole by a uniquely harsh drug law, now repealed. https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/dimetrious-woods-disappearing-freedom/Content?oid=33226491&showFullText=true">https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/d...
In a cell, Woods wrote the motion that convinced a judge to apply the repeal retroactively, but the state& #39;s AG fought back, appealed, and eventually succeeded in defending a law had ALSO given a *life sentence*, for marijuana charges, to Jeff Mizanskey. https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/how-a-missouri-man-could-die-in-prison-for-weed/Content?oid=2504896">https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/h...
A different Missouri governor, Jay Nixon, stepped in to commute Mizanskey& #39;s sentence. https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/how-an-unlikely-coalition-of-family-marijuana-activists-redditors-and-a-gop-state-rep-freed-jeff-mizanskey-from-life-in-prison/Content?oid=3007828">https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/h...
My latest data put the number of people in MO serving special no-parole drug sentences at 200+. The now-repealed "persistent" drug law imposed min 10-year, no parole sentences if you had any 2 prior felonies. One case was 20 years for 2 grams of crack https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2014/10/22/dime-bag-kingpins-how-two-grams-can-get-you-twenty-years?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=articleblog&utm_campaign=rightrail&utm_content=RelatedStories">https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/...
