Parson commutes sentence for St. Louis County man who had police on his side

ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. - Missouri Gov. Mike Parson announced several pardons and commutations Friday before his term ends next month, including one man from St. Louis County who had police officers fighting for his freedom.

62-year-old Paige Spears was convicted of an armed robbery that was in Ferguson in 1988. He was 27 years old at the time and was with another man who reportedly had the gun.

There was no report of a shot being fired or anyone getting hurt, but Spears was sentenced to life under an old "three strikes and you're out" law. It was a law Missouri changed shortly after Spears was convicted, but it was not made retroactive to include people like him.

Under the current law, Spears would have been eligible for parole 10 years ago. Instead, he wasn't up for parole for more than a decade.

Parson commuted Spears' sentence Friday in addition to eight others:

• Vince Carlton
• Eric DeValenaere
• Roscoe Hunn
• Patricia Prewitt
• Timothy Prosser
• Brian Rutledge
• Bobby Wilson
• James Wilson

Spears had gained the support of law enforcement as time had passed. According to retired Sgt. John Frank, Spears had been teaching rehabilitation classes at the penintentiary.

Frank is part of a group in law enforcement taking up the convict’s cause. It’s a group that operates a police podcast called “The Brighter Side of Blue.”

Retired Major Dan Howard, who learned about Spears through Frank, told FOX 2 in November, “(The group has) 105 years of police experience, and one’s still active, so that number is only going up—of putting bad guys in jail, and here comes retired Sgt. Frank wanting us to get a robber out of jail, and he did his research, and you know, this guy deserves to be out.”

16 additional people were pardoned by the governor:

• Randall Breshears
• Lyle Brown
• Ronald Curbow
• Ronald Davis
• Alan Dobson
• Joshua Ford
• Jeffrey Green
• Erica Hansbrough
• Shane Lynch
• Jake Miller
• Celia Newsom (posthumous)
• David Rasmussen
• Amy Winsauer
• Jason Wooderson
• Dimetrious Woods
• Jeffrey Young

According to Parson's website, his office has filed for action through the necessary agencies. Details regarding Spears' commutation were not disclosed.