Oops!

(From the Cincinnatti Courier-Journal)

4,100 miles for an arrest that just goes bust

Kentucky sheriff drives to California only to bring back the wrong man

By Andrew Wolfson
awolfson@courier-journal.com

Two weeks ago, the Butler County, Ky., sheriff and a deputy hopped into their cruiser and drove to California and back -- more than 4,100 miles -- to bring a man to Kentucky for failing to appear in court on the minor felony charge of fleeing from police and drunken driving, a misdemeanor.

On the way there, they stopped to sightsee at country music star Buck Owens' Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, Calif. On the way back, they bought T-shirts at a souvenir shop.

Only when they got back to Western Kentucky and turned their prisoner over to the jail did anyone confirm through fingerprints and mug shots what their prisoner, 27-year-old Joe Oros III, had been saying all along:

They had the wrong man.

(Thanks to the Volokh Conspiracy)

At a later news conference, the sheriff proudly displayed one of the t-shirts he and his deputy had purchased at the souvenir shop.