Eric McCauley

The case

23 years without parole for 100 kilograms.

Eric Scott McCauley was prosecuted in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri after federal authorities alleged he participated in a marijuana distribution conspiracy that moved cannabis from states with more permissive laws into Missouri.

In 2011, a federal jury convicted McCauley on charges related to marijuana trafficking and financial transactions tied to the cannabis activity. Prosecutors alleged the conspiracy involved more than 100 kilograms of marijuana over a multi-year period.

In January 2012, U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey sentenced him to 23 years — 276 months — in federal prison, a term widely criticized by criminal justice reform advocates as excessive for a non-violent cannabis offense. His son was five years old at the time.

The path to freedom

Federal compassionate release motion.

Over the following decade the national conversation around cannabis shifted dramatically. Dozens of states legalized marijuana for medical or adult use, and bipartisan support grew for revisiting long sentences imposed during earlier eras of prohibition.

A compassionate release petition was filed in federal court seeking a reduction of the sentence. Barry Grissom — former United States Attorney for the District of Kansas and now General Counsel to the Forgotten Prisoner Foundation — served as legal counsel in the effort to secure his release.

Grissom argued that McCauley had demonstrated significant rehabilitation in federal custody, that the extraordinary length of the original sentence no longer reflected modern attitudes toward cannabis offenses, and that the disparity between his sentence and the treatment of similar conduct today had become indefensible.

U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough granted compassionate release, allowing McCauley to return home to his family after serving approximately 12 years of his 23-year federal sentence.