Another Inmate Held Too Long In Pr. William

Decker, who made the calls that got Duarte out of jail, said this is what happened:

On April 12, Duarte was charged with driving under the influence, a misdemeanor, and forging a public document, a felony. Decker said the latter had been a misunderstanding because of his name: Jose Luis Duarte Flores. When police questioned him, he signed two documents "Luis Flores" and then signed a copy of his warrant "Luis Duarte," according to the criminal complaint.

Decker said that when she realized the felony charge was a mistake, she had his court date moved up and asked prosecutors to amend the charge to obstruction of justice, which they did, according to court documents. On April 27, Duarte pleaded guilty to the obstruction charge, for which he was fined $200, and to DUI, for which he was sentenced to 90 days in jail with all but five suspended.

He should have been allowed to go home that day. But five days later, a lawyer in Decker's office, Mark Voss, got a call from Duarte's friend asking how much more money it would take to get him out, not understanding how the U.S. justice system works.

"It was the first we knew that he had never been released," Decker said. "I was so angry. . . . He lost everything because he spent five extra days in jail."

For Voss, it was a too-familiar echo. He was the attorney for Cruz, the last man who had been left too long in the jail.

"This has got to stop," Voss said. "It's the same story we had last time."

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After Cruz was wrongly held in the jail last year -- released only after his brother found a clerk in the courthouse who would listen to him -- jail and court officials apologized for the mistake. They said human error, complicated by a language barrier and cultural differences with names, caused the error. His last name was listed as "Antonio Cruz" in court documents and as "Cruz" in jail records, they said.

Officials said they struggle with tracking Hispanic names, which tend to be long and include two last names. Because of the mix-up, the jail never took the inmate to court, and a clerk never sent the jail a release order.

"It seems like there was a breakdown on a couple of levels," Tawny G. Hayes, clerk of General District Court, said at the time.

Afterward, she and jail officials said they were putting mechanisms in place to make sure it did not happen again.