A federal appeal court panel ruled that a woman from New Jersey who was mistakenly detained in 2019 and spent two weeks in jail cannot bring a lawsuit against the U.S. marshals who made the arrest.
The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court decision to declare that the officers’ actions were constitutionally valid because they were carrying out a valid warrant, despite the fact that the officers mistakenly arrested Judith Maureen Henry and then transported her to the Essex County jail in Newark before releasing her two weeks later.
The courts ruled that the marshals were entitled to qualified immunity, a legal defense that absolves officials of liability for conduct performed while carrying out their official duties.
Henry, a Black woman, claimed that her arrest resulted from prejudice against her race and her lower socioeconomic standing, but the judges dismissed her arguments. “But we need not accept this bare conclusion, and she offers no other allegations to support it,” Judge Thomas L. Ambro said in a court opinion.
“Their arrest of Henry relying on information attached to the warrant was a reasonable mistake, and therefore her arrest did not violate the Fourth Amendment,” Judge Thomas Ambro of the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in the ruling.
The warrant for the arrest of the woman the investigators were actually seeking for was issued because she had run away from parole in Pennsylvania 26 years prior.
