Posted on 12/08/2015 3:24:49 PM PST by BBell
Jail was the last place wife, mother and churchgoer Jacqueline Renell Charles expected to spend two weeks of her life.
The 50-year-old manager of tax preparation offices in the New Orleans area was on her way home from work late in the evening Nov. 18 when a law enforcement officer pulled her over for speeding. He told her the stop was taking a long time because when he checked her license, he found a warrant for her in Mississippi.
She couldn't imagine why. Her son is in school at Millsaps College, so she does go to Jackson occasionally for ball games, but she had never been charged with a crime. Anywhere. The officer went back to his paperwork.
"He came back to the car and said, 'I have to arrest you,'" Charles said. "Of course, I started crying."
She was told she could probably pay a fine and go home. But that's not the way her nightmare played out.
Instead, she spent a week in the St. Charles Parish jail, then was hauled off to Mississippi, where she spent another week in the Jackson County jail. All the while, she kept telling officers they had the wrong person. Nobody delved into her story.
"I was just scared and nervous," she said, "not understanding what was happening."
Shackled for transport
She had been allowed to call her husband, who called her pastor, the Rev. E. Craig Wilson of New Generation Fellowship in Kenner. They contacted two New Orleans attorneys, who were trying to help.
She was moved from a holding cell after one night in the Louisiana jail into a pod with 15 or so other women. The day before Thanksgiving, a female deputy arrived in a Jackson County patrol car to take her to Mississippi.
"She shackled me all up and put
(Excerpt) Read more at sunherald.com ...
Thank God for Earl!
bfl
Frightening.
What a nightmare! Poor lady.
I hope she gets a good lawyer to sue the police dept. I know I would.
Sad thing is the cop who did this doesn’t give two flips about it.
Some heads should roll. This woman should be compensated with their pensions.
For those who don’t know - Jackson County is on the Mississippi Gulf Coast by the Alabama line.
Can ANYBODY read Kafka? This is government run amok, assuming minimal evidence to be sufficient for (temporary) imprisonment. Habeas Corpus is downgraded to appearance of an arrest warrant match. Computer systems are used to match minimal information as a pretext to imprisonment in a very poor process of STUPID identification. Yet, God Forbid, we miss a match to a later terrorist attack, the people making a reasoned choice will b absolutely pilloried!
I hope she gets a better attorney than the two New Orleans schlubs who couldn’t accomplish anything in two weeks.
Hmmm I forgot, why are we supposed to trust the Police?
Time to lawyer up. Big time!
She was arrested in St. Charles Parish. It should have ended right there.
Happened to my son in Idaho, only not as bad. His father-in-law was a county prosecutor... They did haul him off the the jail tough.
Surprised it hasn’t happened to me since he is a Jr.
It happens far too often but it is rarely reported by the media.
I applied for a concealed weapons permit in Nevada and had a similar situation. They ran the NCIC and then made me sign a form acknowledging that if I didn't meet the criteria, I would forfeit my application fee. Then the lady called over her supervisor that looked at the multiple "hits" returned on my name. The supervisor quickly saw those hits had a different middle name and date of birth. Those hits were returned despite conflicting with what was queried.
As far as lawsuits go, the responsibility for accurate entries belongs with the agency entering the data. Arrests made not matching the data are the responsibility of the arresting agency. There are numerous warnings from the system about coordinating between arresting and receiving agencies about positive identification.
In the many decades before I was married, I had a woman pretending to be my wife, open up checking and credit card accounts using my last name, address & phone number.
It went on for over a year of me explaining to DA’s and creditors that no such person existed....fortunately over the phone.
Anyway. Occasionally, the stoppees would give him grief of one sort, or another. They would swear and promise to get a lawyer, but as he told me, he didn't care. His job was done, and they would spend the night in jail, a night they wouldn't get back, and he would spend it in bed.
The real person who was the subject of the warrant failed to show up on a theft charge. This should indicate that the woman was, at some time prior, arrested, booked, FINGERPRINTED, and then somehow released.
The article seems to suggest that it is possible to be arrested in one state and EXTRADITED to another state without a fingerprint verification of identity?
If I were on a civil jury hearing the case of the unjustified extradition of this woman, I would be extremely generous in rewarding her for her pain and suffering and very severe in punishing those responsible for maintaining and carrying-out such negligent policies.
I might also consider rewarding the plaintiff with damages against the lawyers who evidently failed to get a court order in a timely fashion to do a fingerprint identification.
I agree with everything you wrote. I know things like this happen but it usually never get’s beyond the LEO, let alone the police station. I don’t know how this got out of hand.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.