LIBERTY, Mo. (AP) - A Columbia man who was facing a return to prison after a three-year legal battle over his parole said he was overwhelmed to learn Wednesday that Missouri Gov. Mike Parson had granted him clemency.
Dimetrious Woods said he was called to Parson’s office Wednesday to be told that he would not be returning to prison after an earlier parole on a drug charge was overturned by the courts. He said he suspected he was going to hear good news because he was told he didn’t need a lawyer for the meeting but should bring his youngest son instead.
“But I didn’t count on it until I heard it,” Woods said. “I am delighted. I definitely didn’t think the governor would go to this dramatic of a decision while he was dealing with everything around the coronavirus.”
Parson said in a news release that he commuted Woods’ sentence because he had become a successful and contributing member of society since he was released from prison in 2017.
It was the first clemency request granted by Parson out of an estimated 3,500 awaiting action.
“This was an act of mercy for a man that had changed his life,” Parson said. ’Placing him on house arrest was the right choice under these unusual circumstances.”
Woods said his sentence technically runs until 2029 and the governor used the language about house arrest because it is part of the statute. He said Parson told him he expected Woods’ life to go on as it has since he was released from prison “because I haven’t been in any trouble since then.”
Since his release, Woods opened an auto detailing shop and a food truck in Columbia, and has been a role model to his five children, while also speaking to and mentoring at-risk young people.
“He has been basically the picture of how going to prison for rehabilitation is supposed to work,” said one of his attorneys, Taylor Rickard. “He did exactly what he was supposed to do while in prison and since then.”
Woods was back at work Wednesday afternoon because an employee had called in sick. He admitted it hadn’t completely set in yet that he no longer had to worry about prison.
“This is my life now and I am overwhelmed that I get to keep doing it,” he said. “I’ve just got to keep on going like I have been.”
Woods was sentenced to 25 years in prison without parole after being convicted in 2007 under a state law that required that sentence for cases involving prior and persistent drug offenses. The law’s provisions were changed in 2014 and Woods was granted parole after a Cole County judge ruled the changes should be applied retroactively to Woods and others.
However, the Missouri Department of Corrections challenged the judge’s ruling and the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in February that the changes in the sentencing law should not have been applied retroactively to Woods and other inmates. The court declined to hear Woods’ request for a rehearing on that issue in March.
RIckard said it was not clear how of if Parson’s decision to commute Woods’ sentence would affect about 120 current inmates who were sentenced under the same sentencing guidelines as Woods.
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