A prisoner from Colorado that was sent back to prison after being accidentally released 90 years early says it was cruel and unusual punishment to put him back behind bars after he turned his life around, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.
Rene Lima-Marin, 35, filed an appeal Wednesday that says his constitutional rights were violated in January when a judge ordered him to finish the rest of his sentence after he started a family during his six years back home.
Lima-Marin was convicted in 2000 of multiple counts of robbery, kidnapping and burglary after he and another man robbed two video stores in Aurora at gunpoint when he was 20 years old. His back-to-back sentences came to a total of 98 years in prison.
The issue arose when a court clerk mistakenly wrote in his file that the sentences were to run at the same time. Corrections officials depend on that file to figure out how much time a prisoner should service, and Lima-Marin was released on parole in 2008. He married his former girlfriend, got a job, had a son and finished parole before police realized the mistake.
He lived openly in the same community where he committed the crimes and did not re-offend.
"Lima-Marin functioned as a member of society, no different than his neighbors, entirely unaware that Colorado would someday rip him from his home and family and end a life he took years to build," his attorney, Patrick Megaro, wrote in the appeal.
Arapahoe County prosecutors have said that Lima-Marin knew about the error and never told authorities as he was building back his life. He never finished an appeal of his sentence in 2001, a move that prosecutors say is evidence that he wanted to avoid further court action that would shine light on the mistake.
Megaro also successfully represented Cornealious Anderson, a convicted robber who, despite trying to, didn't report to prison for 13 years due to a clerical mistake. He was freed in May.
