Man mistaken for felon can sue the state
"A man who was mistaken for a deported felon and held in a Los Angeles County jail for 25 days may sue the state for negligence, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday.
Rejecting lower court rulings, the state high court said Lenin Freud Perez-Torres, 35, may sue on the grounds that authorities knew or should have known they had the wrong man.
Perez-Torres was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in April 2000. Two months later, immigration agents and a parole agent burst into his home at 7 a.m. and threw him in jail for parole violation and possible deportation because a state database identified him as another man -- Lenin Salgado Torres, a parolee deported to Mexico two years earlier."
MAURA DOLAN in the Los Angeles Times.