Gov. Jay Nixon allowed the parole hearing after a majority of state legislators urged freedom for Jeff Mizanskey.
Jeff Mizanskey is among the handful of Americans serving life in prison for nonviolent marijuana crimes.
Many believe his sentence is an injustice, and earlier this year more than two-thirds of Missouri state legislators and nearly 400,000 online supporters urged the Democratic governor to use his executive authority to free Mizanskey, a nonviolent offender ensnared by the state's three-strikes law.
Rather than a pardon or commutation to time served, Nixon, formerly a tough-on-crime state attorney general, in May made Mizanskey eligible for parole, which his original sentence did not allow.
“[M]y action provides Jeff Mizanskey with the opportunity to demonstrate that he deserves parole,” he said.
Mizanskey, 62, goes before the state parole board on Thursday to make his case.
“I opened my mouth and said something to the right people, basically," says his son Chris Mizanskey, creator of the successful online petition, who credits the advocacy group Show-Me Cannabis with making his father's cause a national news item.
“The times are changing all over the United States," he says. "Everywhere people are starting to feel the same way: They’re realizing it’s a victimless crime and it’s way less harmful than alcohol is.”
The parole board deliberations will be cloaked in secrecy. “Parole hearings are closed pursuant to state law,” says Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman David Owen. Parole records, too, are closed, he says.
That means there will be no publicly released vote count or minutes from the hearing or subsequent meetings. The board currently has six members appointed by the governor to six-year terms, and it has a heavy load. It convened 9,797 parole hearings in 2013, more than 800 a month.
Attorney Dan Viets will represent Mizanskey at the hearing. “It’s not a sure thing, but I’m optimistic and I think everyone who’s familiar with the system is optimistic,” he says.
Viets says the hearing likely will feature three board members, who may or may not ask questions and probably will not issue a ruling right away.
He plans to make the case that Mizanskey has been a model prisoner, spending some of his time teaching furniture-making to other inmates, and will point out the state law allowing life without parole for repeat nonviolent drug offenders is repealed, effective in 2017.
He also will present the letter state lawmakers sent to Nixon. “I dare say there’s never been a prisoner who’s had a letter of support from 140 [of 197] members of the legislature,” Viets says.
Reconsideration of Mizanskey’s case – one of only a few that features a life sentence for a nonviolent marijuana offense – comes as the Obama administration scans the federal prison population for inmates given harsh terms for nonviolent drug crimes. Last month, the president ordered the release of 46 such prisoners, almost all imprisoned for crack cocaine.
Mizanskey has been in custody since 1993, when he was arrested and later convicted of aiding and abetting possession with intent to distribute 7 pounds of marijuana. He previously pleaded guilty in 1984 to selling an ounce and keeping more at his home and in 1991 to keeping between 2 and 3 ounces in his home – for which he received probation.
The younger Mizanskey, who works construction and until recently owned a bar, was in his teens when his father was arrested for the final time. He dropped out of high school shortly after and says he had to grow up quickly.
“Man, I tell you what: I’m excited and I’m nervous all at the same time,” he says. “He’s been there for a long time, and I’d hate for them to tell him 'no' and send him back. But I strongly feel in my heart he’s going to get out of there."
“There are so many people that see the injustice in it, I don’t feel they’d want to [say no],” he adds.
Mizanskey says his father always has been hardworking. As an apartment building manager he’d often work seven days a week into the wee hours of the morning, he recalls. “He just wants to get out and go back to work, earn a paycheck and live his life.”
Post-prison plans, his son says, include opening a wood shop and helping mentor at-risk young people. He’s also received a gush of speaking requests from supporters of marijuana reform.
“He feels the same as me and a million other folks in Missouri that marijuana should be legalized and taxed,” his son says.
In truth, there’s probably more than a million legalization supporters in the state.
Show-Me Cannabis recently commissioned a poll to gauge support in Missouri for legalization of medical and recreational marijuana use.
The poll results have not yet been released, but the group's executive director, John Payne, says it found 47 percent support legalization for recreational use, with a much higher support for medical use.
The group plans to launch a 2016 medical marijuana ballot push. A ballot initiative that would add Missouri to the growing number of states that allow possession and regulate recreational sales of marijuana probably is a few years down the road.
Payne says Show-Me Cannabis' activism for Mizanskey will resume if there’s an unfavorable parole board ruling. “I think people would be kind of outraged,” he says. “It would feel like a bit of a bait and switch by the state government.”
Holste says the governor decided to commute the sentence to life with the possibility of parole rather than more drastic action like a pardon because “after an exhaustive review … [he] believed that a commutation of Mizanskey’s sentence was the appropriate course of action.”
Viets says that, although Nixon’s action was less than what many advocates wanted, he personally was thrilled it came before the end of his term in office. He says Nixon’s step also sends “a strong signal to the parole board” that he believes freedom would be appropriate.
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