Essex County authorities’ mistake puts innocent man in jail for 27 days
Essex County authorities’ mistake puts innocent man in jail for 27 days (via NJ.com)
Our story begins one evening six years ago, when Omar Sullivan opened an envelope from Essex County authorities and slowly read the document inside with rising terror. He’d had his share of parking tickets and moving violations, but this notice was…
Time to put everyone of these damned bureaucrats in the slammer for this. Absolutely no excuse.
Let them get a taste of their own medicine and perhaps serve as a warning to other overpaid bureaucrats to do the job right the first time.
Oh, any financial compensation to this gentleman must come out of their own pockets – not the taxpayers!
Do any of the resident legal experts (TomD, MikeL?) happen to know if it’s likely that any criminal wrong-doing was indeed wrongly done and/or if these types of claims are even investigated and prosecuted by any authority? Or is this such a common wrong-doing that it’s simply ignored and considered part of how `the system works`? If criminal charges are possible, what types of charges are likely/possible, false imprisonment, kidnapping, extortion, failure to provide proper documentation (like when you have an expired insurance doc in your car at a traffic stop and it costs hundreds in fines/court fees)? Are corrections/court workers personally protected from criminal charges in such cases or are they open to be charged and then it’s up to a prosecutor/jury to determine their guilt?
Aside from not losing one’s wallet 8 years ago, and perhaps not being black and from Newark, what can a law-abiding citizen do to make sure that this doesn’t happen to them? What thing or things would a legal counsel say Omar should or could have done differently from the start to prevent the situation?