MS Governor grants clemency to an inmate serving 15 years in prison
JACKSON/CHOCTAW COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – In a first for his two terms, Governor Tate Reeves has granted clemency to a state inmate.
In 2015, Marcus Taylor entered a guilty plea to Conspiracy to sell a Schedule 3 drug in Choctaw County Circuit Court.
The state recommended a sentence of 15 years in prison, and the trial judge agreed to the sentence.
Recently, the Mississippi Court of Appeals looked at the sentence, and all 10 members agreed that at the time of his sentencing, the maximum allowable sentence for that offense was 5 years in prison, and declared that the 15-year sentence was illegal.
Taylor has served more than 10 years of his sentence.
Today, the Governor commuted Taylor’s sentence to time served and ordered him to be released within 5 days.
