(Newswire.net — October 2, 2014) — She was the passenger in a car that was pulled over on July 2. Police noticed she had a spoon in her bag that had “some residue” on it. Huff told officers it was just Spaghetti-O sauce, but they conduct a field test which indicate positive for meth and charged her with possession.
Huff was jailed for about two weeks, then released on her own recognizance, her attorney said.
One of the conditions of her release was that she would make a series of court appointments, and after she missed one, she was jailed again on August 2.
Unable to afford to post bond, Huff stayed behind bars for twenty more days, until a lab analysis found
that the substance on the spoon contained no illicit substances.
Van Rossem speculated that the reason the crime lab analysis took so long was simply because of the
sheer volume of cases the lab needs to process. Huff’s results, he said, actually came back “relatively quickly.”
Huff’s advocate van Rossem said that even though Huff knew she was innocent, during the weeks she sat in jail she was strongly considering taking a plea deal — and a permanent criminal record — just so she could get out.
Her explanation is that she had been eating the SpaghettiOs out of the can in the car, and after she
was finished, threw the can out and tossed the spoon into her bag.
Officers also say that the substance tested positive for meth on a field test.
However, field tests, can often be incorrect, as was evidenced in a 2013 case in which a white brick
that field-tested positive for cocaine ended up being homemade soap.
When innocent people go to prison, states typically pay some form of restitution. However, that standard for people that are wrongly convicted in court, is not extended to those jailed while waiting for lab results or a trial.
Though people who are exonerated can sue for damages, twenty-one states provide no money by default. Twelve states and the District of Columbia award damages on a case-by-case basis.
Another 17 states pay a fixed amount per year, and there’s a huge range of payments among those states.