Staff report

A 99-year prison sentence was handed to a San Marcos man Thursday after a Hays County jury found him guilty of his eighth DWI conviction. 

Jose Marin, 64, was found guilty of felony DWI Monday, which stemmed from his arrest on Jan. 17, 2015, for DWI, which was a violation of his parole from a prior conviction. 

The jury of nine men and three women deliberated for three hours Oct. 11 before rendering its guilty verdict, according to a Hays County press release. 

The state during the punishment phase presented evidence of Marin’s seven previous DWI convictions. 

Marin had been convicted of DWI in 1983, 1984 and in 1986 , when he was sentenced at the time to 33 months in prison. 

He was then convicted of DWI again in 1990, where he was sentenced to five years in prison, followed by convictions in 1991 and twice in 1998. It was in that year when Marin was sentenced to 10 years and 25 years in prison in separate cases that were three months apart. 

He was released from prison in 2003 and on parole when he was arrested for DWI in January 2015. According to the release, Marin was stopped by former Hays County Deputy and current San Marcos Police officer Ben Tureaud, who observed Marin weaving and driving 75 miles per hour in a 45 mile-per-hour zone. 

Prior to the conclusion of the punishment phase, lead prosecutor Jennifer Stalbaum urged jurors to consider that “after having been to prison three times previously, that serving the remainder of his life in prison was the only way to prevent further drunk driving by (Marin),” according to the release. 

“In responding to the defense’s admonition to jurors that they would need to render a decision which would allow them to sleep at night, Stalbaum showed the jurors a series of mug shots of Marin from each of his arrests and asked the jurors to send Marin to prison so that ‘we can all sleep at night,’” according to the release.