[imagesource: Netflix]

Joe Exotic, real name Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage, received a 22-year jail sentence in January 2020 for participating in a murder-for-hire plot and violating federal wildlife laws.

Despite a limo and makeup crew arriving on Donald Trump’s final day as president, the blond mullet-wearing zookeeper didn’t get a presidential pardon and remains behind bars in Texas as things stand.

Now a three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals has ruled that the ‘Tiger King’ should get a shorter prison sentence.

Per AP News, the appeals court found that the trial had wrongly treated the two convictions separately in calculating his prison term under sentencing guidelines:

The panel agreed with Maldonado-Passage that the court should have treated them as one conviction at sentencing because they both involved the same goal of killing Baskin, who runs a rescue sanctuary for big cats in Florida.

According to the ruling, the court should have calculated his advisory sentencing range to be between 17 1/2 years and just under 22 years in prison, rather than between just under 22 years and 27 years in prison.

While the court ordered the trial court to re-sentence Maldonado-Passage, his appeals attorney, Brandon Sample, has plans to make the sentence even shorter.

Meanwhile, another lawyer, John M. Phillips (because of course Mr Exotic has more than one lawyer), is hinting at the possibility of seeking a new trial completely:

[He was] saying in a statement he would be filing motions citing previously undisclosed and newly discovered evidence in the case as well as examples of government misconduct.

“People should know what they saw on television isn’t the full truth. It isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. It was snowflakes on the tip of the iceberg, largely manufactured by those who wanted to see Joe Exotic in jail for their own benefit,” he said.

Arguing that Joe Exotic was “railroaded and betrayed”, his team of lawyers are determined to ensure that he won’t die in prison.

At least they’re fighting things through the courts, and not trying to burn a country to the ground.

[source:apnews]