Deandre Pointer, serving four concurrent 23-year-sentences in the Missouri Department of Corrections, won a ruling Tuesday that he must get credit for all time he has served on all four counts of his conviction. If he had lost, Pointer would have been incarcerated for 40 years. He is shown in a 2025 interview (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent).A Missouri man who should have been eligible for release in 2024 remains in prison because the state miscalculated his credit for time he had already served, the Missouri Western District Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.
Deandre Pointer was sentenced to 23 years in the Department of Corrections on four counts, two of second-degree murder and two of armed criminal action, with the sentences to run concurrently. He received the sentence in 2023 after a Jackson County judge determined Pointer was abandoned by his public defender in a post-conviction case filed after his original sentence was handed down in 2005.
When the resentencing was finished, Pointer thought he would be out in about a year, when he had served the required 85% of the sentence. But when a Missouri Department of Corrections record clerk finished processing his paperwork, his projected release date was 2044.
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The department misapplied the law on how to calculate his sentence, Judge Alok Ahuja wrote in the court’s unanimous opinion.
“The Missouri Supreme Court has held that, ‘in construing (state law), we are guided by the principle that criminal statutes must be ‘construed strictly against the (s)tate and liberally in favor of the defendant,’” Ahuja wrote.
The 2023 resentencing changed both the charge in one count, from first- to second-degree murder, and the way the sentences were imposed, from consecutive to concurrent.
“Pointer’s conviction and sentence for first-degree murder on Count 1 must be treated as if they never occurred,” Ahuja wrote.
In a 2025 interview with The Independent, Pointer said he pursued a new sentence because he was a victim of crime, forced to help the perpetrator out of fear for his own safety.
The stress of having to fight for release after winning his resentencing has taken a severe toll, he said at the time.
Missouri math: How a 23-year sentence adds up to more than 40 years in prison
“I never took anxiety meds,” Pointer said. “Never in my life. Now, you know, I have to take anxiety meds just to have a functional day.”
Pointer’s attorney, Kent Gipson, said in an email that Pointer is pleased with the ruling but knows it will not result in his immediate release. The state can seek rehearing or transfer to the Missouri Supreme Court, and Gipson said he expects it to challenge the decision.
The Western District decision overturned a February ruling from Cole County Circuit Judge Brian Stumpe that found the department had calculated the sentence correctly.
“It should have never come to this,” Gipson said. “If the (corrections) officials had done this earlier, it would have likely resulted in my client receiving a parole hearing and an outdate three years ago.”
Pointer was arrested in June 2004 on one count of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder and two counts of armed criminal action. He was convicted the following year, sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder and life in prison for second-degree murder and two counts of armed criminal action.
Those sentences were ordered to run consecutively
After his 2005 trial, Pointer said, prosecutors offered him a deal of 18 to 20 years in prison if he would testify against the person who committed the killings. But Pointer says he was forced at gunpoint to help dispose of the first body, and was tied to a chair during the second murder.
He believed he was innocent and was unwilling to admit to committing a crime, he said.
“I told (the prosecutor) I would testify, but I do not want to take the plea for something I did not do,” Pointer said. “I testified, but I didn’t take the plea, because I wanted to keep my appeals open.”
After the resentencing, the department credited Pointer with 6,929 days on the changed first count but only 557 days on the other three.
In the opinion, Ahuja wrote that the court found the argument about the calculation mistake was enough to decide the case. The court did not address Pointer’s arguments that holding him constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution and that the department violated his due process rights in its actions.
The case centered on Pointer’s prison “face sheet,” a document recording his sentence and parole eligibility dates. The department initially calculates those dates within 90 days of a person’s arrival in prison and recalculates them after resentencing.
The department tried to limit the credit after Pointer’s resentencing by arguing that while second-degree murder replaced first-degree murder as the first count of the charges, he was still convicted on that first count.
But the department had no authority to disregard the new sentence, Ahuja wrote.
“Pointer’s June 2023 sentences are not subject to collateral attack in this proceeding,” Ahuja wrote, “and the department had no authority to disregard the sentencing court’s orders.”
