Man released from prison by mistake turns life around, will now have to serve 90 more years

RENE Lima-Marin must feel like he was dreaming when, over six years, he walked freely in public, secured a good job, got married and started a family.

The former inmate’s dream would become a living nightmare when authorities phoned him to deliver heartbreaking, life-altering news. They were wrong when they released him from prison, they said. They needed him to return to his cell to serve a mind-blowing 90 more years.

Lima-Marin’s story of cruel and unusual punishment started in 1998 when he was a teenager. As an 18-year-old, the Colorado man robbed a number of video stores at gunpoint. He knows it was the wrong thing, but the punishment far outweighed the crime.

He was sentenced to 98 years in prison because a judge tacked on some burglary and kidnapping charges and ordered his sentences be served consecutively.

Ten years down the track, in 2008, a clerical error granted the prisoner his freedom. He grabbed his second chance and ran with it.

He applied for jobs and, after a shaky start, eventually landed one. He married his former girlfriend, Jasmine, and helped raise her son. The pair had a second child together and Lima-Marin’s rehabilitation was complete. Five years and eight months down the track, the phone rang. On the other end, officials delivered the bad news.

That was January 7, 2014, and Lima-Marin is back in his cell today, though he hopes not for long.

“I believe that right from the beginning I was given a punishment that didn’t fit the crime. It was just a robbery but they added three counts of kidnapping and they added burglary and they added these different things so that they can give you as much time as they possibly can,” the 37-year-old told documentary makers last year.

“No one was injured, no one was hurt, the weapons weren’t even loaded. Nothing happened that didn’t happen in any other robbery that someone gets 5-10 years for. I’m not saying that I was right in any way. I take full responsibility for the dumb, ridiculous, stupid mistake that I made when I was 18 years old.

“But what is the purpose of prison? The purpose of prison is not only to punish the person for the crime they committed but also to rehabilitate them. That’s exactly what has happened with me. I’m done and I’ve shown that I’m not the person I was when I was 18 years old. I’m a completely different person. Everything they desire from a person when they have committed a crime has been accomplished in me.”

He said being sent back to prison for a second time after experiencing freedom was agonising but he believed everything happened for a reason.

“The time that I did last time was much easier than the time I’m doing now for the simple fact that I didn’t have a family before. It’s something that runs through my mind every day, all day. I have been taken from my family.”

His wife Jasmine told The Guardianher family has been torn apart.

“I now wake up every morning praying that our boys do not ask me when daddy is coming home,” she said. “My family is no longer complete. I miss my best friend, my soulmate.

“I know that I hurt every single day but I can’t even imagine how much pain he’s in. I know his has to be 100 times worse than what I’m feeling.”

The family has hope that they’ll one day be back together. A change.org petition asking for Rene’s release has been signed more than 284,000 times. There was a glimmer of hope in December when the Colorado Supreme Court agreed to hear oral arguments for his freedom but the case was dismissed in January.

At home, his wife and two children are continuing the fight.

“(The kids) ask me every single day if daddy’s coming home today,” Jasmine said.

“When we go and see him it starts all over again. (They ask) ‘Are you coming home with us? How come you can’t come home with us yet? When are they going to let you come home?’”

She said they haven’t given up hope yet.

“Until (he is released) we’re just going to continue to be patient, to keep praying,” she said.