A man who was sentenced to a staggering 241 years in prison for crimes committed when he was just 16 has been released after serving 27 years.
Bobby Bostic, 43, was released under a law in Missouri which allows people sentenced as juveniles to apply for parole.
Helping secure his freedom was judge Evelyn Baker who had initially sentenced him back in 1997.
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Bostic was 16-years-old when he was arrested and charged with being an accomplice of two robberies in St Louis, during which two people were shot at.
Judge Baker said Bostic showed no remorse in court and ordered him to serve consecutive sentences, which would have meant he wasn’t eligible for parole until he was 112.
Speaking during sentencing, Judge Baker said: “Your mandatory date to go in front of the parole board will be the year 2201. Nobody in this room is going to be alive in the year 2201.”.
However, once in prison, Bostic attempted to turn his life around and got stuck into his education, earning himself a degree. He also wrote 15 books.
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Bostic said his lengthy sentence acted as ‘motivation’ for him to sort his life out.
He told CBS: “Once you make so many mistakes, you get tired, and you want to do something different.
“So I started reading. That's how I found myself, in books. And that's the most peace I ever get in the world. It's a natural high, basically.”
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Judge Baker threw her support behind Bostic’s release and last year, a new law - known as the Bobby Bostic Law - was passed in the state, which allowed those who were sentenced as juveniles to apply for parole.
Judge Baker told CBS that her opinion has changed drastically over the years, admitting: “241 years is insanity, when I think back on it. And I'll say it right now: it's insanity. He was a kid. He was a little boy.”
Speaking following his release, he said: “I'm a free man all because of you all who supported me.
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“While I cannot change what happened so many years ago, I will mentor and teach young people to take a different path than I did when I was a young child myself.”
Judge Baker added: “The Bobby Bostic I put in prison is not the Bobby Bostic who got out.
“Bobby did what many people can't do. He created himself. He took the good, the bad and the ugly, and he turned it into something that's quite beautiful.”
Claire Reid