Civil Liberties

Brickbat: That'll Teach You to Have a Spanish Name

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The Maricopa County, Arizona, officials claimed Briseria Torres was an illegal alien and charged her with three counts of forgery for having falsely obtained a driver's license. She spent four and a half months in jail and lost her house because she couldn't make payments. She was finally freed and the charges against her dropped after her attorneys presented a judge with a birth certificate showing that she was born in the United States. Prosecutors knew about the birth certificate but allowed a law enforcement officer to tell the grand jury that indicted her that it had been falsely created and the state had canceled it. That was not true.

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