Jailed 96 Days on Bogus Charge: It Is No One's Fault?

By JEFF AMY, ASSOCIATED PRESS ACKERMAN, Miss. — Oct 19, 2016, 4:28 AM ET

Pulled over for traffic violations, Jessica Jauch was held for 96 days in a Mississippi jail without seeing a judge, getting a lawyer or having a chance to make bail. She was charged with a felony based on a secretly recorded video that prosecutors finally acknowledged showed her committing no crime.

Only when she finally got a hearing and a lawyer, who persuaded prosecutors to watch the video, did the case fall apart.

Then, the 34-year-old mother sued, alleging violations of her rights to bail, legal representation, a speedy trial and liberty.

But a federal judge dismissed her case against Choctaw County and Sheriff Cloyd Halford last month, ruling that because she had been indicted by a grand jury on the felony drug charge, none of her constitutional and legal rights were violated.

The outcome has flummoxed civil liberties advocates who have been waging legal battles to reform Mississippi's criminal justice system, which provides almost no state funding for public defenders.

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