Jessie Traylor, the father of former Kansas basketball player Jamari Traylor, has received a commutation of his sentence from President Barack Obama.
Traylor, who was arrested in 2008 and later received a life sentence in 2010 for a nonviolent drug crime, had that term shortened to 20 years on Tuesday as part of a round of commutations and pardons from Obama during his last week in office.
Attorney Carl Folsom III, who wrote up Traylor’s clemency petition and made the legal argument on his behalf, learned of the news Tuesday afternoon.
“Knowing that he’s going to get out of prison in a few years, whereas before, there was absolutely no hope .