Reeves commutes wrong sentence that kept man imprisoned extra 5 years

For the first time since becoming governor in 2020, Tate Reeves has commuted a prison sentence. But the person, Marcus Taylor, was already set free by the state’s appeals court because he had been imprisoned five years longer than the maximum sentence.

Taylor, now 43, was convicted of conspiracy to sell a controlled substance in 2015 in Choctaw County. At the time, the sentence carried a maximum penalty of five years, meaning he would have been released in 2020. But he received 15 years.

Reeves’ order directs the Mississippi Department of Corrections to release him within five days.

Weeks earlier, the Mississippi Court of Appeals decided unanimously to reverse Taylor’s case and set him free, allowing him to return to his wife and children – teenagers who were young when he went away.

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