Cleared Man Battles Bill for 14-Month Jail Stay, Kentucky Supreme Court to decide on $4K tab
Cleared Man Battles Bill for 14-Month Jail Stay
Kentucky Supreme Court to decide on $4K tab
– A Kentucky factory worker had spent 14 months in jail when he was able to make bail, a few months before the case against him was dropped. As often happens when someone checks out of accommodations, he was presented a bill by Clark County Detention Center: $4,008. That started a legal battle that has reached the Kentucky Supreme Court, the Messenger-Inquirer reports. "The government can’t punish people unless and until they are found guilty of the crimes they are alleged to have committed," lawyers for David Allen Jones wrote in their briefs for the court. "Yet Kentucky counties have for years routinely kept the money they confiscate from persons on admission to their jails."
The jail also put $256 that was confiscated when Jones was arrested toward the bill. The jail said it's all permitted by state law, per WKYT, to offset the cost of housing and feeding inmates. The bill includes a $35 booking fee, $10 for each day of his confinement, $5 for hygiene supplies when he arrived, and $2.69 for replacing the hygiene supplies. So far, not many rulings have gone Jones' way. "The Constitution does not guarantee that only the guilty will be arrested," a US District judge wrote in a ruling on another lawsuit he filed two years ago. There's nothing in the constitution or statues that says a person determined to be innocent is entitled to a refund, the country's lawyers have argued. It's not clear when the state Supreme Court will rule. use cookies. By Clicking "OK" or any content on thi
https://www.newser.com/story/305256/cleared-man-battles-bill-for-14-month-jail-stay.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=uol&utm_campaign=rss_world_login
https://www.messenger-inquirer.com/wrongly-jailed-winchester-man-billed-for-14-months/article_ea0ced6c-2cb1-5602-9223-6caca15343be.html
In October 2013, acting on a tip from Lexington police that allegedly linked Jones’ Internet Protocol address to a child sex video downloaded from the web, the Clark County Sheriff’s Department raided his home in a Winchester apartment complex and arrested him. His bond was set at $15,000, more than he could afford to pay.
But after repeated searches over coming months, police found no evidence of child porn — not in Jones’ apartment or on any of the digital devices they seized, including a cell phone, computer tablet, Xbox, server, modem, printer and DVDs.
Jones waived his right to counsel and steadfastly asserted his innocence.
Finally, prosecutors acknowledged that someone else around the large apartment complex could have accessed Jones’ wireless network, which was unsecured. With no evidence that he had possessed child porn, they dropped the charges against him. He was released from jail in December 2014.
In a deposition in one of his lawsuits, Jones later said he had to leave Winchester, his hometown, because of the publicity over his arrest. He lost his apartment, his car, his job and most of his social circle, he said.
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