Meet The Man Sentenced To 241 Years in Prison
Bobby Bostic, a St. Louis man who was sentenced to a total of 241 years on 18 charges in 1997 for a robbery committed in 1995 but now the judge who sentenced him to want him to be FREED.
Bostic has been granted parole after the judge who sentenced him retired and advocated for a change in the law used to sentence him.
Bostic was 16 in Dec. 1995 when he and Donald Huston, 18 at the time, robbed a group of people of Christmas presents being donated to a local family in need. Prosecutors said both men fired guns at the group, causing minor injuries, before stealing another woman’s car and robbing her.
When the U.S. Supreme Court denied his case, the ACLU worked with the Missouri Legislature to pass a law based on Bostic’s case that allows teens imprisoned essentially for life for crimes other than murder to get a parole board review after 15 years.
The Missouri Department of Corrections on Tuesday confirmed that Bostic is set to be released from prison next Nov. 9. Until then, the department can offer Bostic a variety of programs, including job readiness classes and family reunification programs, department spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said.
“We can connect him to various re-entry programs to help ensure his success in society,” Pojmann said.
She said the developments in medical studies of the brains of young people over the past 20 years gave her a new perspective into how crimes committed by young people don’t always indicate future behaviour because their brains are still developing and are more likely to be rehabilitated.
Baker said at the time that she intended for Bostic to “die in the Department of Corrections.”
