How Deshaun Durham turned his incarceration into Kansas cannabis advocacy

Deshaun Durham and his mother Brandi Wishard. // Photo Courtesy of The Last Prisoner Project

In the U.S., cannabis is only fully illegal in four states—Wyoming, Idaho, South Carolina, and Kansas. All other 46 states have either decriminalized the plant, legalized cannabis medicinally or completely, or allow CBD oil with small amounts of THC use. 

After legalizing medicinal and recreational use in recent years, Kansas City has seen a shift in cannabis culture in Missouri. But our next-door neighbor right across the state line still lags behind in terms of cannabis reform, although some say that could change this year.

Kansans are still serving time in prison for possessing a plant that Missourians can obtain easier than ever before on the other side of an invisible line. And not only are they still being incarcerated; They are serving serious prison sentences.

The Kansas prison system classifies felony crimes on a severity level and if the act was a person or non-person offense. For example, aggravated battery would be considered a severity four level, person offense. Theft of property would be considered a severity five level, non-person offense. Sentences for a severity level five charge could range between two and a half years to ten and a half years, along with fines. A severity level four charge sentence could range between three to 14 years, along with fines.

Kansas classifies drug-related offenses in a different fashion. The sale of hallucinogenic drugs (3.5 to 100 grams) would be considered a drug severity level three offense. Manufacturing of a controlled substance (not meth or fentanyl) would be considered a drug severity level two offense. Sentences for a drug severity level three charge could range from four to seven years, and seven and a half to 12 years for a drug severity level two charge.

Distributing or possessing with the intent to distribute 450 grams (one pound) up to 30 kilograms of marijuana is considered a drug severity level two offense. Pounds of cannabis are legally distributed every day in the Show-Me State, resulting in a total of $241 million in tax revenue for the state this past year. The polar opposite legislation between the two plots of land creates a fine line where, in one instance, you would be considered a successful entrepreneur digging into a booming industry, and the other would put you in a cell.

A Drop in the Pond

In May 2017, on his youngest brother’s birthday, Donte West was sentenced to seven years and eight months in Lansing County Correctional Facility in Leavenworth by Judge John Bosch for a drug severity level two charge, as an individual testified that West intended to sell a pound of cannabis to them. 

While incarcerated, a friend of his was posting on social media in an attempt to raise awareness about the case. Word spread, as the Last Prisoner Project picked up West’s case and began advocating for his release. 

During this time, West had drafted a habeas corpus motion, and his public defender told him that he had a serious shot at walking out the prison doors. By October 2020, all of the advocating was fulfilled as his motion was granted by the district attorney and he was able to walk free—about three and a half years since he was originally sentenced. In April 2021, West was exonerated. 

The experience completely altered his life, but for the best; Shortly after his release, West began advocating for incarcerated individuals under similar circumstances through the Last Prisoner Project. It started with his cellmate Kyle Page; The two made a pact to do whatever possible to help the other get released, and West was able to fulfill his promise, helping expedite his sentence.

This is where the ripple effect began. Through Cole Gritton and Brandi Wishard, West was notified about a case that was eerily similar to his own; Deshaun Durham’s seven and a half year sentence at Hutchinson Correctional Facility for distribution or possession with the intent to distribute 2.4 pounds of cannabis. He was sentenced by the same judge, in the same county as West.

Fenced in

On June 6, 2020, Deshaun Durham turned 20 years old. Six days later, the DEA was busting down his door with a search warrant. After searching the house and finding 2.4 pounds of cannabis, Durham was arrested and held on a $10,000 bond, which was posted.

His mother says that she was desolated when she found out about his arrest.

“I was heartbroken,” Wishard says. “Before that happened, my husband actually went to prison for three and a half years for selling marijuana. So I was devastated, because now my husband is gone, and now my son is going to be in that same boat.”

Between the time of his arrest and sentencing, Durham had dropped the joints and was focusing on work and personal growth. When he went in for his trial, he initially thought that he would serve a few years of probation. His prediction was widely off.

Although he says he had about ten character witnesses, including a Riley County police officer who advocated for him to serve little to no prison time, Judge Bosch’s final decision was for Durham to serve seven years and six months in prison.

“I’m not gonna lie, I thought my life was over,” Durham says. “I’m 21 at the time, about to be 22, and I’m like, ‘Man, I’m not gonna get out.’ So I’m 30 years old, my life is over. I’m gonna be old, I’m gonna spend all this time in prison, and just come out, like this demented, messed up person.”

“Your 20s are when you learn more about yourself, you make mistakes, you figure out who you want to be—We do all that stuff in our 20s. So you are taking his most informative years, where he’s going to figure out who he is the most, and you’re putting him in prison,” Wishard says.

Now spending his days in Hutchinson Correctional Facility, Durham needed his support system more than ever—and his mother and close friend Cole Gritton were ready to go to bat for him. Similar to how West’s case was picked up by the Last Prisoner Project, the two used social media to spread news about Durham’s situation, which they obviously thought was an unjust sentencing. 

Wishard also says that she persistently took to emailing lawmakers and Kansas Governor Laura Kelly’s office to try and draw attention to her son’s case.

“I pretty much laid how I felt out there—What are we doing? Why are we doing this to this kid? He’s never going to be mentally okay if he has to do the whole eight years,” Wishard says.

The family had to trust the process. They knew that this was an uphill battle that couldn’t change with just the flip of a switch. And the waiting game took a toll on Durham.

During his two years in the system, Durham bore witness to barbaric culture. He says that an inmate that he befriended was a victim of violence at Hutchinson Correctional Facility. 

“One of my good friends—he actually ended up getting hit in the head with a curl bar like five times, and he ended up being in a coma for two months. Pretty traumatic,” he says.

Not only was he a bystander to the brutality of the prison system, but he also suffered his own afflictions, saying that there was a serious bug infestation at Hutchinson Correctional Facility.

“I was actually getting bit by bed bugs, because they have a really bad bed bug infestation, and they refuse to do anything about it,” Durham says. “They maybe come and spray some chemicals and everything, but it just never really did anything. And I actually have scars all over my arms from how many bites that I endured while I was there.”

Durham’s mother is no stranger to the conditions that inmates undergo in the Kansas prison system either. She spent the last ten years working at Topeka Correctional Facility as a night shift nurse and later as a director of nursing before resigning. Now, she is a registered nurse at Shawnee County Department of Corrections.

“I am privy to a little bit more inside knowledge than, let’s say other parents are, because I was in management, I was in the meetings, I did hear about what went on at the other prisons, and it was hard,” she says. “And I think that was just what made me fight that much harder.”

Not only were the physical conditions of the poorly maintained prison quite literally gnawing away at Durham’s flesh, but the psychological tax was also high, knowing that he was serving time for possessing a plant that is consumed by thousands of individuals each day.

“I know Nebraska is now legal, but Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri were all legal,” Durham says. “And then, here’s me in a Kansas prison system doing eight years in prison for something that everyone, for the most part around the state of Kansas, is doing legally.”

He says that each year April 20th rolled around, the days seemed even longer.

“4/20 was the hardest day because all the news channels—like CNN and Fox—they’d show all the 4/20 parades and everyone having a good time. And here I am just sitting in a cell in the Kansas prison system while everyone’s on live TV just enjoying the plant and all it has to offer. I’m over here wasting away, essentially,” Durham says.

Getting a Foot in the Door

Although it took some time to truly get the ball rolling, hope was never lost, and persistence remained abundant.

“After about, I’d say, a year and a half, I ended up meeting Antonio Wyatt,” Durham says. “He’s also someone that the Last Prisoner Project represents, and he told me about Donte, because he actually was in prison with Donte before he got exonerated, and he told me he’ll reach out to him for me.”

This is when West and Last Prisoner Project got involved in advocating for Durham’s freedom. 

“You can tell he was just a kid,” West says. “He learned his lesson the first day in prison, in my opinion.”

He was quickly touched by Wishard’s will to get her son out of the prison system.

“I’m just really inspired by the mother,” West says. “I think the mother was so powerful, so strong, and wanted her son home so bad, how could I not give it everything I got and try to keep a promise?”

Wishard says that after she reached out to local journalist Toriano Porter and he wrote a story for The Star in April 2024, the ball really began to start rolling. She says that West ended up getting former U.S. State Attorney of the District of Kansas Barry Grissom—who now runs his own law firm—on board shortly after the press.

Grissom says it was an easy decision to take on Durham’s case. And he did so completely free of charge.

“He’s a first-time offender, he has no serious criminal record, there aren’t guns involved, there was no violence. And then, when you have a chance to speak with him, you see that he’s just a big kid. He isn’t someone who should be locked away in Hutchinson with people who are serious criminals,” Grissom says.

He says that, after concluding his time with the Department of Justice, he was urged to help create law reform at a federal and state level.

“When I left the Department of Justice in 2016, I thought one of the things that I could do as a former federal prosecutor would be to highlight and point out to people, whether it be through public advocacy or working with folks to get them released, the stupidity of the laws that we have, certainly at the federal as well as the state level,” Grissom says. 

West, Grissom, and all involved knew that getting this task to the finish line wouldn’t be easy—But they were ready to carry the dense dialogue.

“A judge has a family, and I tell people all the time, ‘You have to be a conversation at the dinner table to really make a change. It can’t just be a conversation in the moment,’” West says.

Through constant conversations and advocacy, Durham and Grissom were able to get a meeting with Gov. Kelly’s counsel in August 2024. From speaking with employees of the prison, Durham knew that he had to make the most of his opportunity.

“Everyone in there told me, ‘I’ve seen thousands of people put in clemency, but I’ve never seen anyone get this far to where you’re having a meeting with the chief legal counsel.’ The fact that they’re even willing to meet with me has to speak volumes. They wouldn’t just waste their time talking to someone if they aren’t somewhat interested in giving me clemency and letting me out.”

It is safe to say that the interview went well as Durham received a letter from Gov. Kelly on Nov. 6, 2024. He says that a lawyer for the prison hand-delivered him the note with some words of advice.

“He said he’s been working at the prison for 30 years, and he’s never seen someone get one of these. So he said to take my opportunity and don’t mess it up,” Durham says.

When he sat down to read Gov. Kelly’s words that would ultimately commute his sentence, he says, “It kind of felt like my soul left my body a little bit.”

It is also important to note that the prison review board recommended that Durham does not receive clemency. Gov. Kelly overruled their recommendation.

It was at this moment that Durham knew that all of the letters, emails, advocating, and interviews from the countless individuals on his bandwagon were finally coming to fruition.

One month after receiving the notice, he was able to walk free and reconnect with friends and family for the holidays. For Durham and his team of supporters, the moment was priceless.

“Just walking down toward the gate—freedom. It kind of felt like I was in the air just looking at me walking, just kind of like my body was going through the motions for me,” Durham says.

What once seemed like an impossible feat was now reality, and his mother says that she was proud to keep her word to her son.

“I think everybody that’s ever been a parent knows sometimes we do let our children down,” Wishard says. “Sometimes, we don’t feel like we’re the best parent, but I was able to keep my promise. I told him that I would do everything I could to get him out, and I actually was able to keep that promise.”

The Domino Effect

Durham is one of very few to be granted clemency, and he says that he is not taking the opportunity for granted. The Last Prisoner Project and West’s touching impact have given him a new vocation.

He says that, since his release this past December, he has been hosting public events and using his voice to help advocate for cannabis law reform in his community.

“I just really want to uplift and use my voice to try to sway Kansas to—even if they don’t want to legalize marijuana—just change the sentencing grid a little bit. Just so someone with the first-time offense, especially for marijuana, anyone that gets caught with marijuana for that fact—if we can just have a chance to not go to prison for such an extended period of time,” Durham says.

He also hopes to enroll in community college for two years, and then transfer to Kansas State University to earn a degree in political science.

“I know it’s a super long journey, but like I said, it’s just something I’m so passionate about,” he says. “I really want to do my best to eliminate systematic racism within the state, because I believe I was a victim of that.”

Through West’s and Last Prisoner Project’s support, the program has now molded another individual who will seek to create law reform for folks in similar situations as his, instead of remaining behind bars for another six long years.

“He’s still young, he continues to work hard, and maybe he can find another person like himself and bring it to the attention of people that can help, or he can do it individually. But it’s all a domino effect,” West says.

“I think it shows the state of Kansas and Governor Kelly that they made the right decision.”

The story doesn’t just end because the governor made a progressive decision. The story doesn’t end because he can now walk free. The story doesn’t end here with Deshaun. It didn’t end with Donte in 2017. There are still countless individuals, not only in the Kansas prison system, who still remain incarcerated for cannabis-related charges. 

“The one thing I believe that it highlights is that it took a former U.S. Attorney, it took a mother, it took advocates, and it took the Governor of Kansas to get someone released,” Grissom says. “So the real question is: How many folks are still out there who don’t have those kinds of resources to turn to, or aren’t aware that those resources are there to turn to, who are still incarcerated?”

Anyone from Durham’s corner will tell you that spending extensive amounts of time in prison for marijuana-related offenses is only a waste of taxpayer dollars and resources, and, at the end of the day, unjust in comparison to sentences for other offenses.

“There’s child molesters and rapists and murderers getting way less time than me,” Durham says. “So, am I more dangerous than them just for possessing a plant, [rather] than someone that’s touching children or killing people or shooting people with weapons?”

“When you look at the amount of resources and money that is spent during the investigation, the interdiction, the arrest, the trial, and incarceration of someone for being involved in some aspect of cannabis, it’s a waste of the taxpayer dollars,” Grissom says.

Needless to say, Durham and all that had a helping hand in getting him released commend Gov. Kelly for taking the necessary actions to grant a 20-year-old his freedom back.

“Well, Governor Kelly was completely willing to look at the record of different people, including Deshaun, and say, ‘This isn’t right. This isn’t just, this young man needs a second chance.’ Political courage these days, it’s a rare commodity,” Grissom says.

“I’ll just forever be grateful to Laura Kelly,” Durham says. It’s just so amazing that Kansas has such a proactive governor that’s willing to reverse wrongs to happen in some of these counties in Kansas. So I definitely wish one day I could tell her thank you.”