Carelessly misidentified homeless man in mental hospital for two years

August 4, 2021 7:17 AM

All evidence that he was someone else was ignored, and his claims to not be the person the police was looking for were taken as evidence of insanity.

The Hawaii Innocence Project got him out.

posted by Nancy Lebovitz (23 comments total)

So am I misunderstanding this or was he initially arrested in 2017 over a parole violation from 2006? So if he had in fact been Castleberry, and Castleberry had not in fact been in prison since 2016, the police officer's goal was to arrest Castleberry for an eleven year old parole violation? On every level this is appalling.
posted by Frowner at 7:28 AM on August 4, 2021 [16 favorites]

Relevant
posted by Hutch at 7:30 AM on August 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

the police officer's goal was to arrest Castleberry for an eleven year old parole violation?

Even weirder that the bastard didn't even know what the person looked like! How do you just assume this random sleeping dude is this random parole violator, neither of which you know?!?
posted by GoblinHoney at 7:34 AM on August 4, 2021 [7 favorites]

This is one of those weird secret fears of mine and I hate it when it appears in a book. I hate it even more now that I've read this.
posted by PussKillian at 8:00 AM on August 4, 2021 [17 favorites]

So am I misunderstanding this or was he initially arrested in 2017 over a parole violation from 2006? ... the police officer's goal was to arrest Castleberry for an eleven year old parole violation?

You may be misunderstanding (notwithstanding that 'parole' and 'probation' are two different things). The warrant was for violating probation stemming from a 2006 drug case. There's nothing in the public record stating when Castleberry was sentenced to probation, how long he was sentenced for, nor when he violated it.
posted by hanov3r at 8:13 AM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Just a minor correction: it was actually a psychiatrist at the hospital who got him out, apparently being the only official in this whole farrago who behaved responsibly and intelligently. The Innocence Project is just trying to get his record cleared. There isn't any mention of compensation, though - does Hawaii not have a provision for compensation for wrongful imprisonment? Or maybe this petition is a necessary step before his lawyers can file foor such.
posted by tavella at 8:35 AM on August 4, 2021 [16 favorites]

Christ Almighty. I have some, perhaps naive, expectation that he can and will sue and gain recompense from the government and corporate entities responsible for this horrorshow, such that he will have money for his own home moving forward.
posted by BigLankyBastard at 8:38 AM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]

I'm betting he's more likely to get a bill for two years of treatment from the mental hospital, than a single cent in compensation.
posted by automatronic at 8:43 AM on August 4, 2021 [22 favorites]

There is an old story about a seaman in New York who was picked up in Times Square acting erratically sometime in the fifties, ended up in Bellevue and lived there supposedly for twenty years until someone in the seventies wandered through the ward who spoke the same language he did and finally managed to ask him his name and who he was. If I recall correctly he was from somewhere in the Baltic and had nothing more wrong with him than being hung over, frightened and speaking no English whatsoever at the time when he was picked up.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:49 AM on August 4, 2021 [18 favorites]

If you have no-one to advocate for you in these hospitals this can happen, although not usually for this long.
I spent seven months in a state hospital in Texas for just that reason.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:56 AM on August 4, 2021 [22 favorites]

Having checked, it appears that Hawaii only provides $50k per year of wrongful imprisonment, plus potentially $100k (I guess not per year?) for "extraordinary circumstances". I can't find the actual statute in a quick google, but reading the proposed version, I'm wondering if they are going to try to skate on the argument that he wasn't actually imprisoned (being held in a hospital instead) or the fact that he was never actually sentenced for a crime.
posted by tavella at 8:58 AM on August 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

Spriestersbach now refuses to leave his sister’s 10-acre property. “He’s so afraid that they’re going to take him again,” Griffith said.
heart-breaking
posted by theora55 at 9:33 AM on August 4, 2021 [18 favorites]

the officer mistook him for a man named Thomas Castleberry, who had a warrant out for his arrest for violating probation in a 2006 drug case.

[The psychiatrist] noting that it wasn’t hard to determine the the real Castleberry has been incarcerated in an Alaska prison since 2016.

Wait what? Why was there an active warrant out for Castleberry in 2017 if he was incarcerated at that time?

Was Spriestersbach committed directly to a mental hospital as Castleberry without it going through the Dept of Corrections? Who was being billed for his state hospital "care"?

Not a single thing about this chain of events adds up.
posted by desuetude at 10:17 AM on August 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

Of course, if you are involuntarily committed, any attempt to assert that it was a mistake is just proof of your mental instability.
posted by acb at 11:16 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

Of course, if you are involuntarily committed, any attempt to assert that it was a mistake is just proof of your mental instability.

"That's some catch, that catch-22."
posted by gauche at 12:08 PM on August 4, 2021 [12 favorites]

How did his sister find him? Or did she not know?
posted by Ideefixe at 12:45 PM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Once he was released and dumped in a homeless shelter, the shelter called her.
posted by tavella at 1:31 PM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

But what he didn’t realize was that the officer mistook him for a man named Thomas Castleberry, who had a warrant out for his arrest for violating probation in a 2006 drug case...

Spriestersbach’s attorneys argue it all could have been cleared up if police simply compared the two men’s photographs and fingerprints...

The psychiatrist asked a detective to come to the hospital, who verified fingerprints and photographs to determine the wrong man had been arrested and Spriestersbach spent two years and eight months institutionalized, the petition said, noting that it wasn’t hard to determine the the real Castleberry has been incarcerated in an Alaska prison since 2016...

His lawyers said officials didn’t think anyone would believe Spriestersbach or no one would care about the homeless man who fell asleep waiting for food, only to wake up to a living nightmare.

Jesus Christ. I live in a country where the last execution was sixty years ago, but every comments section on every news story about a serious crime has bots and people about as smart as bots demanding that capital punishment be brought back, because apparently the justice system is infallible.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:26 PM on August 4, 2021 [14 favorites]

He can likely sue, for false imprisonment and medical malpractice among other claims, though there are complexities as you might expect. (And the tort of false imprisonment does not require a prison, it's imprisonment in the sense of confinement.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:19 PM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

if police simply compared the two men’s photographs and fingerprints...

yet again, cops can't be arsed doing the bare minimum of their jobs
posted by harriet vane at 3:44 AM on August 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

When I say "Defund the Police" this is what I mean. Take money away from these buffoons and give it instead to people who will use it to help the community.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:50 PM on August 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

"When I say "Defund the Police" this is what I mean. Take money away from these buffoons and give it instead to people who will use it to help the community."

Can you necessarily trust mental health professionals?

Yes, it's good to have people who will help the community or at least not hurt it, but how do you identify and support them?
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 2:04 AM on August 6, 2021

I think on a case like this, I do trust mental health professionals who are tasked with helping individuals with community resources when faced with an individual who is committing the socially unacceptable “crime” of sleeping on a sidewalk.

The myth that has developed around the police is that when you need them, they’ll come to your aid, be helpful and assist in justice. What many people discover is that the police seem unable to do most of those tasks at a basic level and often really make things more terrible.

But this is really a digression from the massive and bizarre fuckup here. I hope the sister is able to get some help for caregiving her brother.
posted by amanda at 6:32 AM on August 6, 2021 [4 favorites]