The state of Missouri forgets to send a guy to prison for 13 years, and he spends that time leading a productive life and staying out of trouble while never trying to hide (h/t Jason). Then the state notices the mistake and sends a SWAT team to his house.

After he was convicted of armed robbery in 2000, Cornealious Anderson was sentenced to 13 years behind bars and told to await instructions on when and where to report to prison. But those instructions never came.

So Anderson didn’t report. He spent the next 13 years turning his life around  getting married, raising three kids, learning a trade. He made no effort to conceal his identity or whereabouts. Anderson paid taxes and traffic tickets, renewed his driver’s license and registered his businesses.

Not until last year did the Missouri Department of Corrections discover the clerical error that kept him free. Now he’s fighting for release, saying authorities missed their chance to incarcerate him.

In a single day last July, Anderson’s life was turned upside-down.

“They sent a SWAT team to his house,” Anderson’s attorney, Patrick Megaro, said Wednesday. “He was getting his 3-year-old daughter breakfast, and these men with automatic weapons bang on his door.”

Meanwhile, the federal government decides not to bother a Nevada rancher who has been breaking the law for twenty years because someone might get hurt.

It’s not like the Missouri SWAT team could’ve been sent to round up cattle instead, and I really do think it would be dumb if people get killed over that moocher rancher—but it is an interesting statement on the allocation of police resources.