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  1. #1
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Hawaii officials wrongly arrested a homeless man for a crime committed by someone else, locked him up in a state hospital for more than two years, forced him to take psychiatric drugs and then tried to cover up the mistake by quietly setting him free with just 50 cents to his name, the Hawaii Innocence Project said in a court do ent asking a judge to set the record straight.


    A pe ion filed in court Monday night asks a judge to vacate the arrest and correct Joshua Spriestersbach’s records. The filing lays out his bizarre plight that started with him falling asleep on a sidewalk. He was houseless and hungry while waiting in a long line for food outside a Honolulu shelter on a hot day in 2017.


    When a police officer roused him awake, he thought he was being arrested for the city’s ban on sitting or laying down on public sidewalks.


    But what he didn’t realize was that the officer mistook him for a man named Thomas Castleberry, who had a warrant out for his arrest for violating probation in a 2006 drug case.


    It’s unclear how this happened as Spriestersbach and Castleberry had never met. Spriestersbach somehow ended up with Castleberry as his alias, even though Spriestersbach never claimed to be Castleberry, according to the Hawaii Innocence Project.


    Spriestersbach’s attorneys argue it all could have been cleared up if police simply compared the two men’s photographs and fingerprints.


    Instead, against Spriestersbach’s protests that he wasn’t Castleberry, he was eventually committed to the Hawaii State Hospital.


    “Yet, the more Mr. Spriestersbach vocalized his innocence by asserting that he is not Mr. Castleberry, the more he was declared delusional and psychotic by the H.S.H. staff and doctors and heavily medicated,” the pe ion said. “It was understandable that Mr. Spriestersbach was in an agitated state when he was being wrongfully incarcerated for Mr. Castleberry’s crime and despite his continual denial of being Mr. Castleberry and providing all of his relevant identification and places where he was located during Mr. Castleberry’s court appearances, no one would believe him or take any meaningful steps to verify his iden y and determine that what Mr. Spriestersbach was telling the truth – he was not Mr. Castleberry.”


    No one believed him — not even his various public defenders — until a hospital psychiatrist finally listened.


    All it took were simple Google searches and a few phone calls to verify that Spriestersbach was on another island when Castleberry was initially arrested, according to the court do ent.
    https://apnews.com/article/hawaii-10...36763cd0fd025d

  2. #2
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    HSH and police released him secretly, then dropped him off on a street corner with 50 cents

    Once the fingerprints and photographs were verified, officials moved quickly, but secretly, to release Spriestersbach in January 2020, the pe ion said.


    “A secret meeting was held with all of the parties, except Mr. Spriestersbach, present. There is no court record of this meeting or no public court record of this meeting. No entry or order reflects this miscarriage of justice that occurred or a finding that Mr. Spriestersbach is not Thomas Castleberry,” the court do ent said.

  3. #3
    Damns (Given): 0 Blake's Avatar
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    Jesus that's sounds like something out of the late 1800s, not 2021

  4. #4
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    Jesus that's sounds like something out of the late 1800s, not 2021
    Typical for bully, predatory, quota-chasing cops, everywhere, even in deeply Blue Hawaii.

    Will the cops' victim sue?

  5. #5
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Jesus that's sounds like something out of the late 1800s, not 2021
    Sounds very 2021 to me.

    It's an ok system for people who have enough money to post bail and fight. But homeless folks who fail to remain out of view or who present any minor inconvenience risk getting thrown in jail or ins utionalized with no recourse.

  6. #6
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    So the cops screwed him and the hospital staff thought he was just being delusional when he said he was innocent. How nice.

    Isn’t there a process to determine whether one belongs in a psychiatric hospital or not? How can you just toss someone in there without knowing if that person is well balanced or not?

  7. #7
    notthewordsofonewhokneels Thread's Avatar
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    Sounds very 2021 to me.

    It's an ok system for people who have enough money to post bail and fight. But homeless folks who fail to remain out of view or who present any minor inconvenience risk getting thrown in jail or ins utionalized with no recourse.
    They didn't even make those arsonists and murderers and looters post bail up & down the western seaboard last Summer, Winester. Just revolved door 'em all.

    You got nary room, son.

  8. #8
    notthewordsofonewhokneels Thread's Avatar
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    So the cops screwed him and the hospital staff thought he was just being delusional when he said he was innocent. How nice.

    Isn’t there a process to determine whether one belongs in a psychiatric hospital or not? How can you just toss someone in there without knowing if that person is well balanced or not?
    Recky, preemptively covering all his bases.

    tee, hee.

  9. #9
    notthewordsofonewhokneels Thread's Avatar
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    Typical for bully, predatory, quota-chasing cops, everywhere, even in deeply Blue Hawaii.

    Will the cops' victim sue?
    No, well, not unless he's of color and even then, it's a close call, bouts. They don't like to give out those checks unless they want to give out those checks, like to that crazy bas George Floyd's extended family. tee, hee.

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