Brickbat: It's All There in Black and White

A federal appellate court has ruled that Judith Maureen Henry, who spent two weeks in jail in a case of mistaken identity, cannot sue the U.S. Marshals who arrested her. The marshals arrested Henry on a warrant for a woman of the same name who skipped out on parole in Pennsylvania in 1993. Henry protested her innocence and asked for her fingerprints to be compared to those of the woman named in the warrant. That did not happen until after she was transferred from the jail in New Jersey, where she was living, to Pennsylvania. The court ruled that since the marshals were acting on a lawful warrant, they had qualified immunity.

Comments

[Don't look at me!]

Sarc has said cops only arrest you if you are guilty

[Commenter_XY]

Yo, this is the People’s Republic of NJ. Clearly, Citizen Henry did not pay her dues to Team D in Essex county.

Essex county NJ is a cesspool of corruption.

[Rossami]

US Marshals. That is, the feds. Yes, NJ is a cesspool but that has nothing to do with this particular abuse.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I wonder what absolute immunity looks like.

[SQRLSY]

It’s like being God… Or The Donald, or a SCROTUS Judge!

[LIBtranslator]

BLASPHEMER! Humble yourself before Bob.

[LIBtranslator]

I’ll bet PA passes a law sayin’ next of kin can’t ambush the perps. Then they can use the asset forfeiture loot to buy Papal Indulgence pardons and pre-viability extreme unctiousness for all the Meanies in Blue. That’s what absolute immunity looks like.

[MWAocdoc]

Sometimes your “translations” make less sense than at other times …

[Medulla Oblongata]

I have a hard time being outraged on this one, except for maybe the two weeks in lockup. Unless there’s more to this, I assume the Marshals were doing their best with the information and warrant they had. I’m pretty sure that they hear “You got the wrong person!” all the time, too, and that 99% of the time that’s a lie.

I would tend to think that processing should have taken the fingerprints and matched them more quickly, but the initial arrest on the warrant seems like a regrettable mistake, but one made withing the confines of doing their job.

She shouldn’t have been held for more than a few hours it should have taken to have her prints checked, which I expect to be part of a standard booking process on a disputed identity. The parolee’s prints would certainly be in the system.

[Stuck in California]

You can’t get outrages over two weeks?

How much vacation does the average worker get? How about you spend your vacation in jail instead of visiting your mother in Florida over the holidays? Or better yet, you have to explain to your work why you just didn’t show up for a fortnight. I remember being poor at points in my life when an unplanned two weeks without work would have hurt me badly, financially, as well.

“Oops, sorry” isn’t enough. Two weeks is absolutely ridiculous.

The only problem is that the lawsuit isn’t against the agency who detained Henry for that period of time, but a simple honest mistake doesn’t put someone in jail for long enough they could face economic hardship. Going after the perpetrators of the arrest, and everyone else involved, is how you stop the bureaucratic buck passing that allows government officials to do horrific things that they can then blame on others.

[Medulla Oblongata]

Read it again. That’s the *only* part I can be mad about.

I’m supposed to be mad about the QI aspect, but I just can’t be based on what’s written here. Once the Marshalls arrested her, she was handed over to local authorities for extradition, etc. The arresting marshalls seem to have operated in good faith based on the warrant they were issued, albeit mistakenly. They can’t take her fingerprints for comparison in the field.

The outrage is that it took two weeks to properly identify her.

[MWAocdoc]

I’m sure glad that my name isn’t “John Jones!” Imagine how many times “John Jones” would be arrested by U.S. Marshals! Having said that, suing officials for a case of mistaken identity should not have been necessary. If they had done due diligence BEFORE getting the warrant and verified her identity immediately after taking her into custody, and compensated her from some fund for the purpose of preventing angry citizens from filing complaints, this would not be an issue!

[AT]

You left out the best part, as usual.

He also rejected Henry’s claim that her treatment resulted from her race, sex, national origin, and “lower economic status.” Henry is Black and from Jamaica, court paperwork shows.

BUH MAH LOTTRY CARD!

Gee, I wonder why, quote, “the Marshals failed to take her claims of innocence seriously.”

“A reasonable observer could conclude the answers are not hard to find and would impose minimal burdens on the Marshals,” he conceded.

Yea, but when you’re screaming like a banshee that you’re the next fentanyl martyr, maybe this lends to the conclusion that they’ve got the right person. You don’t exactly draw a lot of sympathy and good will – even for minimal burdens – when you scream that the cops are racists and sexists and poorists.

Y’know, true story, there is a gross discrepancy on one of my utility bills. Been a thorn in my side for half a year, trying to get it fixed. I’m 100% in the right, but these bureaucratic slugs gotta slug their way through their bureaucracy. What help do you think it give my cause to grievance-monger over it? What benefit would there be to me to overact in the role of victim? Would it expedite it? Maybe net me some kind of reward for the trouble?

Just, how friggin’ hard is it for people to be decent human beings? Patient, kind, understanding, tolerant, forgiving – and to just deal with grievances in a calm and rational manner? It’s not rocket science – just be decent.

But we’ve spent so many decades teaching Americans to be the exact opposite of that, haven’t we.

I was prepared to empathize with this woman. Until she played the “poor black woman” card.

Hell with her.

[Use the Schwartz]

The two comments next to each other are gold, simply perfect:

“Just, how friggin’ hard is it for people to be decent human beings? Patient, kind, understanding, tolerant, forgiving – and to just deal with grievances in a calm and rational manner? It’s not rocket science – just be decent.

But we’ve spent so many decades teaching Americans to be the exact opposite of that, haven’t we.

I was prepared to empathize with this woman. Until she played the “poor black woman” card.

Hell with her.”

Now she’s a criminal right AT? Now you know where she fits…

[AT]

No, she’s not a criminal. She’s just an unsympathetic jerkass.

That’s a thing with Reason, Use. They pick the least sympathetic cases to try and argue their narrative. Did I feel bad for what she went through? Yea. Until I realized she was a jerkass. Then I didn’t really care. Because jerkass in, jerkass out.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“a warrant for a woman of the same name…

“The court ruled that since the marshals were acting on a lawful warrant, they had qualified immunity.”

Maybe I’m missing something, but from this description it sounds like there’s nothing wrong with the warrant, the problem is that the Marshals arrested a different person from the one named in the warrant.

If the summary is correct (and maybe it’s wrong), how can they hide behind the warrant when the person they arrested wasn’t the person on the warrant?