“You just get worn out, your spirit gets worn down”
by digby
I wonder how often this sort of thing happens?
Ashley Huff, a 23-year-old woman from the city of Commerce [Georgia], was the passenger in a car that was pulled over on July 2. Police noticed she had a spoon in her bag that had “some residue” on it. Huff told them it was just SpaghettiO sauce, but they slapped her with a charge of possession of methamphetamine.
Huff was jailed for about two weeks, then released on her own recognizance, her attorney, Chris van Rossem, told The Huffington Post. However, one of the conditions of her release was that she would make a series of court appointments, and after she missed one, she was reincarcerated on August 2.
Unable to afford to pay bond, Huff stayed behind bars until September 18, when a lab analysis found that the substance on the spoon contained no illicit substances.
Van Rossem speculated that the reason the crime lab analysis took so long was simply because of the sheer volume of cases the lab needs to process. Huff’s results, he said, actually came back “relatively quickly.”
Even though Huff knew she was innocent, during the weeks she sat in jail she was strongly considering taking a plea deal — and a permanent criminal record — just so she could get out, Van Rossem told HuffPost.
“You just get worn out, your spirit gets worn down,” the attorney said. “You reach a point where you’ll do anything just to get out of jail.”
Ok, so she missed one of her court appointments. That’s on her. But considering that she was being hounded for eating SpaghettiOs, one can’t exactly blame her. But to jail anyone anyone on a suspicion that some unidentified “substance” might be drugs is simply outrageous.
The horrifying stuff about plea bargains is sadly common. It’s also not uncommon for people to confess to crimes they didn’t commit simply to end the agony of interrogation or incarceration. What an incredible waste of time, money and energy.
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