
A man who was accidentally released from prison 88 years early - danso
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/07/unfreed
======
waterfowl
The insanity of the charges/sentencing reminds me of a passage from _The Hot
House_ (which is excellent, Pete Earley somehow got permission to go mingle
with prisoners at USP Leavenworth for a year and write about it).

A Bank Robber, 45

 _' They originally charged me with murder, kidnapping, and bank robbery, but
I'm really just a bank robber with really bad luck. You see, my buddy and me
were robbing this bank, and when we come outside there is a cop waiting across
the street and he starts shooting. He shoots my buddy, but I don't know he's
dead so I pull him into the car and drive away. When they bust me, they charge
me with murder, kidnapping, and the robbery.

I ask my attorney, "How the hell can they do that? All I did was rob a bank"

He says the law says if you are committing a felony and someone dies, a bank
teller has a heart attack or something, you can be charged with murder. He
tells me they charged me with murder because my buddy got killed.

He says the law says when I pulled my buddy into the car and drove off, I
kidnapped him because I was taking a body from the scene of a crime. That's
how they got me for kidnapping.

He says the law says that I can be charged with all three even though I didn't
kill nobody and I didn't kidnap nobody.

I say the law sucks.'_

~~~
psychometry
The deal you get from prosecutors is only as good as your lawyer and good
lawyers cost money. This is what happens when the criminal justice system is
run by politicking judges and prosecutors elected by a public whose
understanding of punitive systems doesn't get any more nuanced than "let's be
hard on crime!"

~~~
maratd
> This is what happens when the criminal justice system is run by politicking
> judges and prosecutors elected by a public

The same stupidity is on display in states that don't elect their judges or
prosecutors.

The problem is that there is no incentive for actual justice. Neither the
judge nor the prosecutor pay for the incarceration. Nor do they care for how
long the individual is incarcerated.

Might be nice if they were given a limited number of years to distribute among
their convicts. A little scarcity might to do the system some good.

~~~
noir_lord
Holy shit.

That's brilliant!

Calculate the number of judge sentence years based on prison places, want
harsher sentences build more prisons, tie the cost of incarceration directly
to judges sentencing.

------
mschuster91
Talk about cruel punishments, locking up someone for two fucking robberies
without any deaths for nearly a century is unreasonable, cruel and defies
everything our civilization stands for.

But hey, private prison operators need to make money and police/DA/any part of
the justice system profits from being "tough on crime"...

Thank God I'm German, even if you end up killing someone you'll at most get 15
years (okay, there are some exceptions, but they're literally exceptions, not
like US where exceptions tend to become standards).

~~~
mikeash
Another side of this is that the harsher you make the punishments for small
crimes, the less you discourage moving up to bigger crimes.

If you're robbing a place and your punishment for being caught is effectively
life in prison, what reason do you have _not_ to murder all the potential
witnesses to improve your odds of getting away with the crime? All you have is
morality, and I don't want to rely on the morality of criminals.

I know that the deterrent effect of prison on criminals is highly debatable,
but if somebody is robbing me, I don't want all of the incentives given to him
to point towards murdering me too.

~~~
venomsnake
> Another side of this is that the harsher you make the punishments for small
> crimes, the less you discourage moving up to bigger crimes.

Actually it makes it easier ... there is upper limit on how much you could
punish a person. And if the penalties for stealing pack of gum and high
treason are the same - well ... why bother with only the first.

~~~
LukeShu
Read that sentence/post again, because the two of you agree.

~~~
venomsnake
Too many monsters too little sleep :(

------
qiqing
The U.S. incarcerates more people than China. Not per capita, mind you. More
total people. If ever there's a stellar example of the kind of disaster that
can result from privatizing a government function, this is it.

Private prisons have a strong profit motive to increase the number of people
behind bars until we have the kind of situation we have today in the U.S.
These are folks who can afford to pay lobbyists to create the kind of
sentencing that leads to 98 years for 2 robberies, and criminalize non-violent
or victimless 'crimes.'

Here's a Last Week Tonight segment on the broken prison system in the U.S.:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pz3syET3DY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pz3syET3DY)

~~~
merpnderp
I don't know that you can directly compare the two judicial systems.
Especially when China executes roughly 61 times as many prisoners - often for
petty crimes from repeat offenders.

That being said the US puts far too many people in jail, often for far too
long of sentences.

~~~
kpil
Still, I think there is something fundamentally flawed with a society where
40-50 % of all men have been arrested by the police by age 23.

I tried to find some comparable statistics and I found that 5-10 % of all
15-20 year old males in Sweden have been -suspected- for a crime. I doubt that
all of them were actually arrested.

------
kstenerud
> “Plainly said,” Orman wrote in his reply, “the Defendant had no business
> getting married and starting a family.”

Wow. Just wow...

~~~
S4M
I came here to say just that. I can't believe someone who is supposed to
represent justice can dehumanize someone to this point.

It's a very sad thing to read.

------
downandout
The worst part of this, IMO, is how the mistake was discovered. His former
prosecutor was looking up his old cases on the state DOC's website, apparently
to delight in the damage he had caused decades earlier. You would have to be a
pretty depraved person to derive pleasure from unjustly taking away someone's
life.

~~~
joncp
I thought that too until the article implied later that they were looking for
other clerical errors as a result of a really bad mixup.

~~~
downandout
The state was auditing some cases, but according to the article his didn't
come up for an audit. This was just the DA reflecting on his handiwork.

------
unreal37
There was an element of "pre-crime" to the original sentences. Not just this
case, but the article alludes to an entire program to sentence young people
who have multiple brushes with the law to life long periods. Taking young
teenagers off the streets for the rest of their lives purely on the basis that
they are likely to continue committing crimes if they were released again and
not for actual crimes committed.

The COP program was done away with, but someone should revisit those horrific
sentences given to teens that effectively take their entire lives away.
Guilty, yes. But 90+ years for a case where no one got hurt? Wow.

------
woodchuck64
Sign the Petition: [https://www.change.org/p/john-w-suthers-release-rene-lima-
ma...](https://www.change.org/p/john-w-suthers-release-rene-lima-marin)

------
Raphmedia
This article was a very good read.

If you are in America, you should try and contact that governor his family is
lobbying. I would, but I'm not living in this country.

~~~
kej
That would be Governor John Hickenlooper,
[http://www.colorado.gov/governor/](http://www.colorado.gov/governor/)

~~~
MichaelAO
Send him a tweet:
[https://twitter.com/hickforco](https://twitter.com/hickforco)

------
mastermojo
What was he incarcerated for? Edit: Two counts of first-degree burglary and
three counts of aggravated robbery

~~~
RadioAndrea
"Both men received two counts of first-degree burglary and three counts of
aggravated robbery, for each of the three employees they made cooperate at the
two stores... Then came the kidnapping charges: three counts of second-degree
kidnapping, because they’d forced three employees in those two robberies to
move from one part of a store to another."

Edit: and edit ninja'd...

~~~
basseq
I really dislike "stacked" charges. Maybe that's the best way to differentiate
between "a burglary", "a burglary where an innocent person was involved", "a
burglary where 3 innocent people were involved," and "a burglary where 3
innocent people were involved and made to do stuff beyond 'getting robbed'".

But assuming "equal" charges, is involving three people 3x as bad as involving
one? Is "forcing people to move" 2x as bad as just robbing them?

~~~
gootdude
"... Two clerks were in the store, not just one. Lima-Marin and Clifton
brought them both into a back room, forcing one onto the floor and the other
to open the safe. “They put a gun to the back of my head and said, ‘This is
where you’re going to die,’” one of the employees, Shane Ashurst, later
recalled."

[https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/07/unfreed](https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/07/unfreed)

A bit more than simply asking them to move to another room.

~~~
basseq
The "mov[ing] from one part of a store to another" was how the article
characterized the kidnapping charge. I would imagine that forcing someone to
the floor and threatening them with a gun would be part of the aggravated
assault charge. Otherwise, what's the difference?

------
jpgvm
Heh, I found the most ironic part to be where he talks about the simplicity of
prison life. Everything is paid for and he simply studies.

Makes you start to think about what the proportionality of these sentences
actually work out in the eyes of the victim of the crime.

In some way the victim wants them awarded the biggest punishment possible, but
at the same time that punishment comes out of their pocket in taxes that go to
keep this person behind bars for an unreasonable amount of time.

I don't know what the numbers are but that sounds awfully expensive to me and
if I was an employee at a video store that got robbed I really don't think I
would like all that additional burden on the economy as retribution for a few
minutes of fear.

------
vorg
It's difficult to read stories about U.S. non-concurrent sentences, third
strike system, plea bargaining replacing jury trials, and 1% lockup rate for
adults, then listen to their people talk about "Freedom in America" and keep a
straight face.

------
erobbins
This is nothing more or less than cruel and unusual punishment.

------
bobowzki
Reading this made me feel sick...

------
hobarrera
Given that the man _had_ changed, and actually moved on to have a more civil
life, can anybody explain the point of him going back to a correctional
facility? What are they trying to correct?

------
barking
I would like to see clemency for this man but I don't view the european system
as being necessarily superior to the USA. In my country there are a lot of
avowedly unrepentant murderers walking the streets after 'life' sentences that
in some cases lasted less than a decade. The state has decided to show
compassion. It's easy to forgive someone when you're not the victim or one of
those who loved a victim. Personally I feel that if you premeditatedly take
another person's life you should have no expectation of ever being able to
live outside a prison again.

~~~
DangerousPie
If this was really an issue, shouldn't the murder rates in European countries
be a lot higher than in the US?

According to Wikipedia [0] the "intentional homicide" rate in the US is 4.7,
in the UK 1.0 and in Germany 0.8. Shouldn't those numbers be reversed if the
European system was releasing "avowedly unrepentant murderers" back onto the
streets?

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate)

~~~
jessaustin
European nations should be compared to European nations. American nations
should be compared to American nations. Actually just a glance at your
wikipedia page makes this clear: different continents simply have different
murder rates. I feel this phenomenon is rooted in historical colonization.

------
venomsnake
> and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against
> the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

And why is he not rubberstamping such when the prison situation in US is
cruel, sadly not unusual and definitely unjust.

~~~
nknighthb
The offenses were not against the United States. This man is in a Colorado
prison for crimes under Colorado law. The President has no authority in this
case.

~~~
venomsnake
There are enough federal inmates with good reasons for pardon. And mass
pardons of federal prison could hint the governors about their power too.

~~~
nknighthb
1) The governors have powers that vary from zilch to equal to the President's.
This is determined state-by-state.

2) You are mistaken if you believe all or even a substantial minority of the
governors would ever agree with your views in this matter.

~~~
jessaustin
The Colorado governor may pardon any Colorado conviction other than those for
treason or impeachment. The entire point of this thread is that the governors
are culpable for the injustice of the system. Their opinions don't absolve
them of that.

~~~
nknighthb
The comment I responded to said _" And mass pardons of federal prison could
hint the governors about their power too."_. This suggests two mistaken
beliefs:

1) That governors as a whole have these powers.

2) That "hints about their power" would prompt them to act in the manner he
wishes.

The governors don't need hints about their power in this area, they are well
aware of it. They don't fail to exercise it as he wants them to because they
need a "hint", they fail to exercise it as he wants them to because _they do
not agree with him_.

I'm not addressing the thread as a whole. I'm addressing this little corner of
it. I'm under no obligation to address the thread as a whole in every comment
I make, and doing so would be both pointless and tiring.

