After more than five years in office, Gov. Tate Reeves first exercised his power to grant executive clemency earlier this month when he ordered the release of Marcus Taylor, who had been wrongly sentenced to five years longer than the maximum sentence for his charge.

Now, he has exercised that constitutional authority again, this time to free Taylor’s twin brother Maurice. 

On Dec. 31, Reeves signed Executive Order 1591, directing the Mississippi Department of Corrections to release Maurice Taylor within five days. 

“A couple of weeks ago, my office was contacted for the first time by Maurice Taylor’s post-conviction counsel and provided a copy of Mr. Taylor’s indictment, plea petition, sentencing order, transcript of the sentencing hearing and other documents from the Circuit Court file,” Reeves posted on his X account Wednesday. “These documents confirm that, like his brother, Maurice Taylor received a sentence more than three times longer than allowed under Mississippi law.” 

In February 2015, Maurice Taylor pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to sell a controlled substance, an offense that carries a maximum sentence of five years. However, the Choctaw County Circuit Court in its judgment sentenced him to 20 years in MDOC custody with five suspended, a sentence 10 years longer than the maximum for his offense. 

According to court papers, the sentencing judgment misidentified the offense as business burglary and imposed an illegal sentence. In 2016, the trial court entered a corrected judgment identifying the proper offense but failed to correct the sentence.

Reeves’ executive order notes that Taylor began serving his sentence on March 6, 2014, meaning that he has, to date, served more than 11 years for an offense that carried a maximum sentence of five, thus constituting a “miscarriage of justice.”

“When justice is denied to even one Mississippian, it is denied to us all,” Reeves said.

Similarly, Marcus Taylor, who was indicted with his brother, was convicted in 2015 for a drug sale charge that was meant to have a five-year maximum sentence. Instead, he received 15 years. 

But unlike his brother, the Mississippi Court of Appeals voted 8-2 to release him. The attorney general’s office asked the court to vacate its decision after Reeves’ granted the 43-year-old clemency. It refused. The attorney general’s office is appealing that decision to the Mississippi Supreme Court.