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. 

Reeves called the man’s sentence illegal and noted how Taylor has already served more than a decade in prison. As governor, Reeves said it is his duty to ensure the state’s laws are executed “without passion or prejudice,” and commutation of Taylor’s sentence to time served fulfills that constitutional duty. 

“This is about justice, not mercy,” Reeves said Thursday. “ … Respect for the rule of law and protecting every Mississippian’s right to individual liberty and self-determination are the bedrock principles upon which our Constitutional Republic and state were founded. If justice is denied to one Mississippian, it is denied to us all.”

A decade earlier, Taylor pleaded guilty to selling opioid painkillers but the plea petition incorrectly listed the maximum sentence as 20 years. At the time, nobody in court, including his former attorney, caught the error. It was discovered in 2023 when Taylor claimed to be eligible for parole. 

Reeves has been asked to grant clemency in a number of cases, including for the four death row inmates executed while he has been governor. He has also been asked to look at clemency in a number of other cases. 
Several Mississippians have been granted clemency for federal crimes across several presidencies, including 11 people who had sentences commuted by President Barack Obama during his two terms. Drug possession was a common sentence.