NJ woman mistakenly jailed for 2 weeks can’t sue U.S. marshals

A New Jersey woman who spent two weeks in jail in 2019 in a case of mistaken identity cannot sue the U.S. marshals who arrested her, a federal appellate court panel has ruled.

Even though the officers arrested the wrong Judith Maureen Henry — and sent her to the Essex County jail in Newark before she was finally released — the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling to say that the officers' actions were constitutionally valid because they were executing a lawful warrant. Therefore, the judges said, the marshals are entitled to the legal protection of qualified immunity, which shields officers from actions taken in the course of enforcing the law.

The judges also rejected the claims by Henry, who is Black, that bias against her race and lower-economic status led to her arrest. Writing for the court, Judge Thomas L. Ambro said: “But we need not accept this bare conclusion, and she offers no other allegations to support it.”

The woman whom the authorities were actually looking for had absconded from parole in Pennsylvania 26 years earlier, prompting the warrant for her arrest.