ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Bobby Bostic will be released from prison after having been granted parole from a 241-year sentence. He has been imprisoned since 1995 for robbery when he was 16-years-old.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri (ACLU) celebrated the decision on Monday, announcing that the 42-year-old will be released late next year. The group has been fighting for his release for years.
One even in 1995, Bostic and an 18-year-old accomplice robbed several people in St. Louis. He was convicted of kidnapping, multiple counts of robbery and assault, as a gun was fired and grazed a victim. Circuit Judge Evelyn Baker felt Bostic was not a likely candidate for rehabilitation and required his sentences to be served consecutively so that he would not be eligible for parole until 2091.
In 2018, Judge Baker began working with the ACLU help get Bostic out of prison.
"Baker now understood that beliefs common in the 1990s about youth offenders not being capable of rehabilitation were wrong," stated the ACLU. "She viewed Bostic—who had atoned, improved himself, and learned from his youthful mistakes—as a prime example of those erroneous beliefs."
A 2010 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States said it is unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile to life without the possibility of parole for nonhomicide crimes. The ACLU worked with Missouri lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and were able to get a new law passed.
HB2201 went into effect on Aug. 28, would provide a parole hearing after 15 years in prison for Bostic and approximately 100 others serving de facto life without parole sentences for nonhomicide crimes they committed as juveniles. Judge Baker advocated for Bostic's release at the hearing.
The parole board announced its decision on Monday to grant Bostic his parole.
“The prejudices that let us believe as a society that teens who commit crimes are beyond redemption are still borne by those who remained imprisoned decades after mistakes that they made as juveniles,” said Tony Rothert, ACLU of Missouri’s Director of Integrated Advocacy. “While the legislature continues to add to the books laws that push young people from school to prison, Bobby demonstrates what we all know: who we are as children does not forever demarcate who we can become as adults.”
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