I personally experienced something similar 20 years ago. Mine was due to piss-poor policing as well. Thank The Universe that I wasn't in a jail-cell for two weeks and it wasn't during a pandemic.

My story.

I was living in Utah and a City police department in Idaho had a larceny warrant out for my arrest.

Why? Before I had moved to Utah, I lived in Idaho. I drove a friend to another friends house and dropped them off. I later picked them up again. He didn't have a license or a car. Unbeknownst to me, allegedly, he stole a laptop when they were at the other persons house. The plates for my vehicle were written down and filed in the police report as a detail. The police report was clear that I didn't commit the theft, the other person did, but I drove them. The detectives were supposed to come get my statement and used my vehicle registration to call me and investigate. Someone got lazy and they put the arrest warrant out on me as the owner of the vehicle.

Two years later, I'm driving to work one day and I get pulled over for a missing taillight and as they run my information, they find I have a warrant for Larceny theft for something over $2,500 out of Idaho. They throw me in Jail and keep me for four days. I was a naive and unexperienced "kid" (21 years old) thrown into a rough environment where others really had stolen cars, had hard drug problems and violent offenses and Utah was just waiting for as long as they wanted to extradite me back to Idaho. The environment was shocking to me. Insinuations of violence if I didn't give another "kid" my pillow, extreme anger and extreme homophobia everywhere.

I couldn't get arraigned or get in front of a Judge since it wasn't a warrant out of Utah. My family in Idaho retained a lawyer, the lawyer interviewed the person who filed the police report and she knew who stole it and knew it wasn't me and she even told the police as much which cleared my name and got the warrant squashed and got me released.

The company I worked for let me go without cause. Right to work state - Utah. The situation made them uncomfortable.

Of course, no repercussions for a false warrant. I was in jail for four days, I lose my job, during the arrest they impounded my vehicle and I have to pay fees to get it out. I'm fortunate my family had the means to retain a lawyer and get the warrant squashed but if it wasn't for that luxury, I likely would have been there for at-least another week as Idaho took their sweet time to send a Sheriff to Utah to come pick me up.

There really should be reform for the criteria required for a warrant and the criteria and timeframe for extradition. It should be a crime to imprison someone for four days or two weeks without being arraigned even if extradition is involved. It's 2022, can't extradition be required within 24-hours? We have planes and that expense would hopefully encourage a police department to be smart about the warrants they place.

I wonder if I could have won a civil case for the shoddy police work leading to my legal expenses to get me out and my lost wages but didn't have the means to pursue it against the City Police Department. I licked my wounds, moved on and didn't really think about it again until this article.