Supreme Court hears habeas case

The Missouri Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday about whether a St. Francois County inmate who pleaded guilty to a crime while behind bars should be released.

In 2003, Anthony Zinna appeared before a circuit judge on a felony charge of possessing marijuana while incarcerated inside the Farmington Correctional Center. According to court documents, Zinna agreed to plead guilty to the offense if he was not designated as a persistent offender.

At court on Wednesday, both attorneys agreed that there were prior discussions during the sentencing phase about the five-year term running consecutively. But when the judge in the case handed Zinna a five-year sentence, she did not specifically state whether it was concurrent or consecutive.

When the court entered the written sentence, it put in that Zinna was to serve the five years consecutively as opposed to concurrently. That meant that his prior April 2007 release date was pushed back to April 2012.

The case is State of Missouri ex rel. Anthony Zinna v. Troy Steele, Warden, SC90000.

Read more on this story in Thursday’s papers.