Clemency for Christmas; Gov. Kelly commutes Manhattan man’s sentence

MANHATTAN (KSNT) – A local man is back home after spending the last two-and-a-half years in prison.

Deshaun Durham was 20-years-old when he was arrested for having over two pounds of marijuana. He was originally given 92 months; an unusually extreme punishment for a first-time offender.

He was released earlier this month after Gov. Laura Kelly commuted the remainder of his sentence. Dec. 25th will be the first Christmas home with his family since getting locked-up.

“Such a good feeling,” Durham said, “to be able to actually enjoy, you know, what comes with the holidays. Be around my family and just celebrate Christmas again and everything like that, you know, it’s a pretty intense feeling.”

Durham was incarcerated at the correctional facility in Hutchinson. He said when all-else failed, he appealed to the Governor.

“They told me I could fill out a clemency application,” he said, “but thousands of people within the prison system put that in so, they’re like ‘oh, you’re probably not gonna get it.’ So I just sat in my cell one day and wrote a three-page letter to the Governor.”

After years of waiting, he got a response.

“I guess in the end it worked out,” he said. “They told me I had an interview with the Governor’s chief legal counsel… talking to other people in there, they’re like, ‘oh, that never happens. So, you know, something good must be on the way.’”

During a sit-down with 27 News, Gov. Kelly said she doesn’t generally discuss specifics of pardons or commutations. When asked about Durham’s case, Kelly stood by her history of exercising her power to grant clemency.

“We should not keep people incarcerated who don’t need to be incarcerated,” Kelly said, “or have been incarcerated for much longer than would have been in, say, another case.”

Clemency isn’t the only gift Durham got for Christmas. Among the top of his to-dos after release was seeing the Kansas City Chiefs play at Arrowhead Stadium. Chiefs wide receiver Xavier Worthy caught wind and made it happen.

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“It was definitely quite the experience,” Durham said. “I went from watching all the Chiefs games on my 13-inch TV that we had at the prison to actually being there and being so close to the field.”

The Manhattan native didn’t get the chance to meet Worthy, but hopes to say ‘thank you’ in-person one day.

“It was a really nice gesture by Xavier Worthy to hook me up like that,” he said, “I really hope in the future he’s willing to meet me.”

Durham is working at a local Chinese restaurant while he figures out what’s next. He said it’s still surreal to be free.

It kinda felt like a dream. I had to look at the paper, the commutation paper, a couple times just to make sure it wasn’t like scam mail or something, to make sure it was real… it was hard not to cry a little bit cause, you know, I had about four-and-a-half years left. It’s, you know, prison is so hard in there.

Deshaun Durham on finding out his sentence was commuted

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