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624-year sentence for rapist; plus other eye-popping jail terms

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An Alabama man has received a 624-year prison sentence for kidnapping, rape and sodomy.

It’s not the first time an Alabama judge has handed down a sentence longer than a human’s life expectancy.

The longest jail sentence in the U.S. for a single count was issued in Alabama in 1981 when Dudley Wayne Kyzer of Tuscaloosa received 10,000 years for killing his wife, according to the Alabama state website.

He also killed his mother-in-law and a college student, for which he received two additional life sentences.

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In Tuesday’s sentencing, 25-year-old Mark Anthony Beecham was given 99 years each for six counts -- first-degree kidnapping, two counts of first-degree rape and three counts of first-degree sodomy -- plus 20 years for felony first-degree theft of property and 10 more for felony first-degree bail jumping.

According to the Dothan Eagle newspaper, Beecham testified at the sentencing hearing and said he didn’t believe he had received a fair trial.

He said he and his attorney had only two months to prepare for the trial on eight felony charges and saw a juror sleeping at two different times during his trial -- one of those times was during his lawyer’s closing arguments.

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After Beecham testified, the judge handed down the 624-year sentence.

Beecham’s and Kyzer’s sentences are just two of the whopping prison terms that have been handed down in the U.S.

In California, Juan Corona was convicted in 1973 of killing 25 migrant workers. He received 25 concurrent 25-years-to-life sentences. He won a new trial in 1978 -- and was re-convicted on all charges. As the Los Angeles Times reported last December, Corona was again denied parole.

The longest jail term to a single person on multiple counts was to Oklahoma child rapist Charles Scott Robinson in 1994. Robinson received a sentence of 30,000 years -- 5,000 for each of the six counts against him.

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Jurors in the case said at the time they wanted the Oklahoma man behind bars for good.

As was reported in The Times, the judge said Robinson probably wouldn’t be paroled until he was at least 108 years old.

“By doing that, I think I can assure that you will spend the rest of your natural life in the confines of the Department of Corrections,” he told Robinson.

And in another record sentence, Darron Bennalford Anderson secured a Guinness World Record entry for “the greatest amount of jail time given as a result of an appeal.”

Anderson did not commit murder, but he’s not up for parole until the year 12,744.

The Oklahoma rapist -- also convicted of sodomy, kidnapping, burglary and robbery -- was sentenced to several centuries behind bars. Anderson’s original sentence in 1994 was 2,200 years.

He wasn’t happy with that and appealed, which resulted in thousands of years added to his sentence.

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