Another Inmate Held Too Long In Pr. William

Spanish-Speaking Man Victim of Clerical Error

For five days recently, Luis Duarte sat in the Prince William County jail, not knowing that he should be released, not realizing that because of someone else's mistake, he was sitting there, scared, confused and forgotten in a system that had lost someone like him before.

"I had never been in jail," Duarte said in Spanish. "It was horrible. There's so many people, and you're scared of everyone you see, because you don't really know who you are living with."

For the second time in a year, a Hispanic immigrant who does not speak English remained in the jail after his release date. The first time, Fernando Antonio Cruz, a 25-year-old from Mexico, lingered behind bars for two months after he should have been freed. This time, it was Duarte, a 21-year-old from El Salvador who has lived legally in the area on a work visa since he was a teenager.

How Duarte ended up slipping into the same bureaucratic crevice as Cruz -- and why he was told he would not be released until June, even though a court declared him free in April -- is being looked into by the Virginia attorney general's office. Jail officials said that it should not have happened and that the county has been trying to improve communication between the judicial branches.

Duarte's attorneys, meanwhile, say his case illustrates a larger problem.

"What we have here is clearly a serious equal-protection issue for the entire population that does not speak English," said Alexandria-based lawyer Victor M. Glasberg. "They are dramatically more at risk of getting lost in the abyss."

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Before Luis Duarte stepped into the jail, his life was one of carefully coordinated days. Seven days a week, from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m., he worked cutting trees, and from 5 p.m. until 10:30 p.m., he stocked shelves at a Manassas grocery store. In the few hours in between, he slept in a rented room at a friend's house.

While he was in jail, he said, he watched helplessly as it all slipped away.

He was fired from the tree job when he didn't show up, he said. Then the grocery store job was gone. He gave up the room to someone else after jail officials told him he wouldn't be released until at least June 14, the date that jail records listed as his next court appearance.

What jail officials didn't know -- because it had not received the proper paperwork from General District Court -- is that the charges against Duarte had been settled and he was free to go, his attorneys said. The case was settled April 27, and the June court date was no longer on the docket.

"He would have sat there," his criminal attorney, Cindy L. Decker, said. "June would have come. June would have gone."