Crosley Green took the news better than his family, his lawyers said, when the recently reincarcerated 65-year-old man from Titusville, Florida, learned his tentative release date would be in 2054.

“His family is having a hard time believing or understanding why, under all of the circumstances of him being released for two years, him being a model citizen, a model inmate for 30 years, why he would be denied parole,” said Jeane Thomas, one of Green’s pro bono lawyers at Crowell & Moring who attended Green’s parole hearing in Tallahassee last week. “And it’s very hard to explain it to them.”