A Missouri man spent two decades behind bars after being charged with conspiring to sell 6 pounds of marijuana in 1996 to a dealer that was suspected to have connections to a Mexican drug cartel. At the time in Missouri, the crime was enough to have him sentenced to life in prison without any chance of parole.
Since then, however, the law under which he was originally sentenced has been changed.
After years of lobbying, and protests for the legalization of the substance by supporters and family, Jeff Mizanskey was released Tuesday after courts agreed that his sentence was too rigid for the crime. Due to Mizanskey's past with drug convictions—two from his past in particular—he was punishable, by Missouri law, to be sentenced without parole.
NBCreports that what made his case strange, however, was the fact that Mizanskey was the only inmate in his prison to be serving such a serious sentence for a nonviolent drug-related offense. His case caught the attention of Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon, who agreed in May of this year to help reduce his sentence, bringing him back to freedom.
This isn't the only case of a state being forced to reevaluate sentences for drug-related crimes, alongside a critical public about the reality of high costs for long sentences for minor drug offenders.
