Mike McCloud, who lives in Wichita, says his depression went away when Gov. Laura Kelly granted his request for clemency. He faced the possibility of returning to prison for another 21 years. (Fernando Salazar for ACLU of Kansas)
I met Mike McCloud back in 2018, when I worked for the ACLU of Kansas. We were fighting for clemency for dozens of people, and Mike was one of them.
We hit it off immediately. Mike has a sunny, southern way about him. He’s chatty and fun, the kind of person you’d like hanging out with.
A judge looked at his time served — and at the fact that he’d been a model inmate who paid back every dime he’d stolen — and released him. Mike had even managed to save money from working, so he had a financial parachute to help him gently reenter society.
Storybook ending? Not with Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe rushing the stage as the villain. Howe challenged Mike’s release, arguing that the judge had no authority to modify the sentence. The Kansas Court of Appeals ruled in Howe’s favor.