Posted on 11/24/2021 6:58:30 PM PST by simpson96
After spending more than two years in a psychiatric facility against his will in a case of mistaken identity and being forced to take mind-altering medication, a Hawaii man is taking legal action.
Joshua Spriestersbach was arrested and committed to the Hawai’i State Hospital after authorities allegedly mistook him for a criminal named Thomas Castleberry, according to lawsuit filed on filed on Sunday. Spriestersbach was sleeping on a sidewalk just outside a homeless shelter in May 2017 when Honolulu Police picked him up and booked him for Castleberry’s alleged crimes.
Castleberry, whose criminal record includes drug use, auto theft, and burglary, had an outstanding warrant for his arrest.
Spriestersbach provided officers with his name, date of birth, social security number, and fingerprints, but Honolulu Police never verified his information, according to the Hawai’i Innocence Project. Police also had Castleberry’s image on file, but no distinction was made between the two men.
Spriestersbach spent four months at the Oahu Community Correctional Center, awaiting his first court appearance. Despite insisting he wasn’t Thomas Castleberry in court, Spriestersbach’s public defender requested a three-doctor panel evaluate his client at the state hospital, where he spent the next two and a half years.
According to the lawsuit, Spriestersbach was represented by an additional six public defenders, none of whom verified the accused’s identity.
Spriestersbach was allegedly drugged into a stupor as officials mistook his claims of mistaken identity for symptoms of delusion.
“Once Joshua was at HSH, he told hospital staff, his doctors, and the three mental health evaluators that he was not Castleberry,” according to the Innocence Project. “The more Joshua protested that he was not Castleberry and that he had never committed the crimes he was in HSH for, the more he was given strong anti-psychotic medication, which caused him to be catatonic.”
(Excerpt) Read more at oxygen.com ...
I think I would go medieval on their butts.
Yeah, and be committed back to the middle ages.
The worst of it is how it shows how this happens. One person in the bureaucracy did not do his job. And no one could be persuaded that was the problem. In fact they probably felt it would be wrong to double check.
I hope he wins millions.
“Book ‘em, Dan-o.”
Good luck with the lawsuits, and with appropriate criminal prosecutions.
He had a total of seven public defenders, and none of them dug any deeper to find out who he really was.
Criminal negligence, on top of other crimes.
One lesson; don’t take a nap on a public sidewalk, especially on a sidewalk right next to a homeless shelter.
And if you do take a nap on a sidewalk anyway, don’t get belligerent or rowdy when a security guard wakes you up.
Man arrested, stuck in mental hospital for more than 2 years after being mistaken for someone else
Officials put the wrong man in a mental facility for 2 years. When he objected, they called him ‘delusional.’
A Clockwork Orange.
Here's your 4 bits.
You're free to go.
We're good...right?"
After I sued every last one of them from the arresting cops, all the alleged public defenders, judge(s), staff at facility, “doctors” other medical personnel, ANYBODY ELSE WHO WAS INVOLVED. AND I MEAN SUE THEM AND THEIR RELATIVES, EVEN THE DOGS UNTIL THEY ARE LIVING IN A DUMPSTER !!!
Then drag them down to the blood bank and donate ALL of their blood.
I better stop before I get in trouble....
The court settlement should yield enough for Spriestersbach to buy a nice home and maintain it for the rest of his life.
How is this substantially different than what has been done to every other human on the planet in the last 2 years ?
So, when do they sue him for being in the mental facility under false impersonation, and demand he repay all the expense of his upkeep & “treatment”?
Wouldn’t put it past them, to try and cover their sorry rears.
He didn't.
He was polite and cooperative and willing to move on.
Even apologized.
But the Police Officer who had already decided who he was was having none of it.
Oh, the guy they supposedly mistook him for? Already in prison. In Alaska.
Which they would have know if they had bothered to check either man in the system.
Going lawsuit will yield a much happier ending...
This is really terrible. And then they just drop him off with 50 cents and drive off. You can’t make this up.
Mistaken identity?
He didn’t KNOW who he was? /s
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