Another Inmate Held Too Long In Pr. William

The Prince William jail superintendent, Col. Charles "Skip" Land, said that after the Cruz case, the county's criminal justice branches realized that they needed to communicate better.

He said officials have met monthly to discuss how to improve the system. The jail board also hired an outside consultant, and the jail began printing more literature in Spanish, he said.

"You never want an incident where a guy stays an extra minute than he should," Land said. "That should never happen."

At the same time, he said, the jail processes more than 1,000 inmates a month, with a trail of paperwork attached to each. If the jail does not receive the proper paperwork and a court date is shown as pending, officials have to be careful about not releasing an inmate too soon, he said.

He estimated that 25 percent of the jail's inmates are immigrants, the majority from Spanish-speaking countries.

When asked about the Duarte case, Hayes said she was told to refer all questions to Chief District Court Judge Wenda K. Travers, who said the case had been handed over to the attorney general's office, which would answer questions.

J. Tucker Martin, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, confirmed that officials there were "reviewing the situation," but said they had no further comment.

Glasberg said he plans to contact the attorney general's office to discuss the situation. He said he has every expectation that it can be resolved through agreement rather than litigation.

He will not file suit, he said, if officials take two actions: compensate Duarte for what he lost, and put in place reasonable measures to ensure that "non-English-speaking people are not left in a black hole."

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Although Cruz disappeared soon after his release, Duarte has decided to stick around and fight.

"I just don't want this to happen to other people," he said. "If I was there for days, then other people could be there for years."

Duarte, who has no relatives in the area, said he was walking out of English class at the jail when a guard checked his number and told him he was free to go.

"He said, 'You're leaving,' " Duarte recalled. "I said, 'Me?' "

"Then I started jumping up and down," he added. "I was excited . . . telling people I was free."

When they finally let him out of the jail, no one was there to greet him, and so he did the only thing that made sense, he said.

He began walking and didn't stop until he got home. When he got there, his room was gone, so he would stay on the couch, at least for a few days.