N.Va. Prisoner Lost in Translation

"You certainly don't want to hold someone longer than you should and deprive them of their freedom," Land added. "I'm sorry that this happened."

But even when an inmate is not present in court, he said, a clerk should issue a release order and fax it to the jail. That was not done until Kaiser alerted the clerk's office.

Hays said the clerk initially didn't type up an order because "there wasn't any reason for her to believe he was in jail" because he wasn't in court. Cruz also could have posted a $5,000 bond the night before, she said.

"This is not a good thing, and it makes me feel very badly," Hays said. She added that "what is unusual is the attorney didn't raise a flag."

Cruz's defense attorney, Joseph Thelin, said he was concerned and called the jail's records department the next day. He doesn't usually follow up on each dismissed case, but he had been worried when Cruz was not take to the courthouse.

"They said he had been released," Thelin said. "That is where I had left it. . . . I don't think anyone intentionally lied to me. I think it was just a mix-up."

Thelin said he has agreed to help Voss with the case against the county if he ever locates Cruz.

Lucas Guttentag, director of the Immigrants' Rights Project for the American Civil Liberties Union, said it is not unusual for immigrants to fear fighting the system when they have been wronged. It is not uncommon for them to slip into the shadows, he said.

"The sad truth may be that there are more people suffering wrongs who are afraid to try to enforce their legal rights than we are generally aware of," he said.

In September, the D.C. government agreed to pay $12 million to inmates who said that they were jailed hours and days longer than they should have been. And in March, a Guatemalan immigrant laborer, Ramiro Games, 46, who was charged with a misdemeanor in Prince George's County that often results in probation or a few days in jail, was released after spending nearly six months in jail without going to trial. Because he didn't speak English, he was unable to alert anyone that his case had not been heard.

The Prince William jail began offering English classes to inmates in January; 1,251 people have enrolled, with 233 inmates signing up in June.

Land said jail records do not indicate that Cruz ever questioned why he had not been released.