Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

From "They’re Haunted by ‘Ghost Warrants’ Years After Their Arrests" by Eli Hager, 2019-04-29:

"A ghost warrant stays alive like this: After a defendant serves his time, or charges are dismissed, a judge is likely to order any outstanding arrest warrants dissolved. But then a clerk might fail to type the judge's order into the court record, or to transfer that updated record over to the sheriff's office to be entered into its database of warrants. So when a deputy pulls the person over years later, it looks like he's still wanted for the same crime.

"It's easy to blame 'nefarious law-enforcement attitudes,' said Anthony C. Thompson, law professor at New York University and an expert on criminal records, 'but I think mistakes like that are more a symptom of mass incarceration itself-this patch quilt of so many overlapping local criminal-justice systems.'

[...]

"Getting arrested or tossed in jail, even for a short time, can inflict lasting damage, putting a person at risk of losing a job, home or kids. Yet there's little recourse for those who have their lives disrupted over invalid warrants, legal experts say. Filing a wrongful incarceration lawsuit is rarely fruitful, because the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled that as long as there's no evidence police acted in bad faith, honest mix-ups are an expected and acceptable side effect of finding and jailing criminals."