Governor Jay Nixon came to St. Louis on Friday for a ceremony celebrating the building of a dental school. And after the event, he finally addressed the topic of granting clemency to Jeff Mizanskey, the man who has been in prison for more than twenty years, serving a life without parole sentence for marijuana charges.
Well, maybe “addressed” is being a bit generous.
A reporter from KMOX (1120 AM) first brought up the Mizanskey case during a Q&A session after the ceremony. Referring to President Barack Obama’s recent announcement that he will seek clemency for some nonviolent drug offenders serving excessive sentences in federal prison, the reporter asked Nixon about his views on doing something similar in Missouri.
Here’s a video of the exchange (apologies for the weird angle):
The Governor then went on to dodge the question of whether or not Mizanskey would be considered for clemency in the future. Check out more on this over at the Riverfront Times.