Dimetrious Woods vs. Missouri Department of Corrections

The Missouri Department of Corrections (“DOC”) appeals the judgment of the Circuit Court of Cole County, Missouri (“circuit court”), granting Mr. Dimetrious Woods’s (“Woods”) motion for judgment on the pleadings in his declaratory judgment action.



Following a traffic stop in May of 2006, Woods and a co-defendant were charged with the offense of drug trafficking in the second degree in violation of section 195.223, RSMo Cum. Supp. 2005. Woods’s case proceeded to a bench trial in October of 2007, and Woods was found guilty as charged. Finding that Woods was a prior drug offender pursuant to section 195.295.3, RSMo Cum. Supp. 2007, the court sentenced Woods to twenty-five years’ imprisonment without eligibility for parole. At the time of Woods’s sentencing, section 195.295 provided the mandatory term of imprisonment for repeat offenders convicted under each subdivision of section 195.223. Section 195.295.3 required that Woods “shall be sentenced to the authorized term of imprisonment for a class A felony, which term shall be served without probation or parole[.]”



Effective January 1, 2017, the Missouri Legislature enacted the Revised Criminal Code of 2017. Section 195.223, defining second-degree drug trafficking and its elements and classifications, was transferred to section 579.068, and section 195.295, providing the mandatory term of imprisonment for prior and persistent drug offenders convicted under section 195.223, was repealed.



In May of 2017, Woods filed a petition for declaratory judgment arguing the repeal of section 195.295 applied retroactively, and that accordingly, he should be deemed eligible for parole on his twenty-five-year sentence. Both parties filed motions for judgment on the pleadings, and the court granted Woods’s motion, entering its judgment holding that section 195.295 is not applicable in determining Woods’s parole eligibility and ordering the Department of Corrections to apply the existing laws in determining Woods’s parole eligibility. Woods received a hearing and was paroled on March 23, 2018. The Department of Corrections appealed.

The repeal of section 195.295 falls within the scope of section 1.160’s bar on retroactive application because the repealed statute was a part of the substantive law governing Woods’s offense. Section 195.295 described the authorized term of imprisonment to be imposed for a person found to be a prior drug offender and convicted of one of the specifically enumerated offenses therein described, and required the sentence imposed within that authorized range to be served without eligibility for probation or parole. Although the sentencing enhancement provision in section 195.295 was not located within section 195.223.3(2) (the statute which described the elements of the offense of trafficking in the second degree), because section 195.223.3(2) is expressly referenced in section 195.295, that statute defines the offense of trafficking in the second degree, and the required punishment for same, when the accused is determined to be a prior drug offender. The repeal of 195.295 by Senate Bill 491 thus falls within the scope of section 1.160’s bar on retroactive application.