Martin Cole-
Howaii Police must compensate an innocent homeless man they accidentally locked up for two years in a mental health hospital in Hawaii.
The shocking error which ought lead to resignations and fines against the officers involved, has so far shown no such signs. Had such miscarriage of justice occurred in the Uk or The U.S, resignations would have followed.
A representative of The Howaii Police told The Eye Of Media.Com they would get back to us about the issue of compensation, but five hours later, there has been no word.
Joshua Spriestersbach (pictured)was virtually treated like an animal, and should be looking at no less than a seven figure sum for his treatment,
“Part of what they used against him was his own argument: ‘I’m not Thomas Castleberry. I didn’t commit these crimes. … This isn’t me,’” his sister told The Associated Press. “So they used that as saying he was delusional, as justification for keeping him.”
After his release, he ended up at a homeless shelter, which contacted his family.
“And then when light is shown on it, what do they do? They don’t even put it on the record. They don’t make it part of the case,” Griffith said. “And then they don’t come to him and say, ‘We are so sorry’ or, how about even ‘Gee, this wasn’t you. You were right all along.’”
The shameful actions of the Howaii police is typical of police conduct all over the world, who try to hide their failings by covering it up instead of owning up to their error.
Joshua Spriestersbach had actually been arrested in relation to an outstanding warrant from 2006 for drug crimes, due to mistaking Spriestersbach for a man named Thomas Castleber
After spending nearly three years at the mental health hospital, the man was forced to take psychiatric drug.
When the serious error was discovered, The Hawaii Innocence Project filed a court petition on Monday night to have a judge rescind Spriestersbach’s arrest and have his records subsequently corrected.
The nightmarish scenario began in 2017 when Spriestersbach fell asleep while waiting for food outside a Honolulu shelter. After being woken up by a police officer, Spriestersbach presumed he was being arrested due to the city’s ban on lying or sitting down on public sidewalks.
According to the Hawaii Innocence Project, Spriestersbach tried to tell officers, doctors and other staff involved that they had the wrong man. But the more he protested, the more he was ‘declared delusional and psychotic by the HSH staff and doctors’ and subsequently ‘heavily medicated’, stated the petition.
Joshua Spiersterbach was committed to Hawaii State Hospital after (Image: Hawaii State Hospital/Facebook)
The petition went on to say:
‘It was understandable that Mr. Spriestersbach was in an agitated state when he was being wrongfully incarcerated for Mr. Castleberry’s crime and despite his continual denial of being Mr. Castleberry and providing all of his relevant identification and places where he was located during Mr. Castleberry’s court appearances, no one would believe him or take any meaningful steps to verify his identity and determine that what Mr. Spriestersbach was telling the truth – he was not Mr. Castleberry.
Eventually, after two years and eight months and even Spriestersbach’s own public defenders not believing his protestations as to his true identity, a hospital psychiatrist finally believed his claims.
The psychiatrist then arranged for a detective to come to the hospital, who checked Spriestersbach’s fingerprints and photograph, before realizing the wrong man had been arrested.
Google Searches
Google searches’ and ‘a few phone calls’ soon revealed that Spriestersbach was also on a different island when Castleberry had initially been arrested for the crime, the court document stated.The petition concluded by saying that all services involved, including the police, the state public defender’s office, the state attorney general and the hospital ‘share in the blame for this gross miscarriage of justice’.
A spokesperson for the Honolulu prosecuting attorney’s office, Matt Dvonch, declined to comment. Gary Yamashiroya, special assistant to the attorney general, also declined to comment.
The real Thomas R. Castleberry, 49, is reported to be living in the Spring Creek Correctional Facility in Seward, Alaska, according to reports.
Spriestersbach was subsequently released and ended up in a homeless shelter. He now lives in Vermont with his sister, who spent nearly 16 years looking for him after he moved to Hawaii and disappeared on the Big Island, while living with mental health issues at the time.
However, the Hawaii Innocence Project and Spriestersbach’s sister, Vedanta Griffith, have continued to feel disappointed with how the incident was resolved.