In popular culture, FBI agents—think Mulder and Scully or Clarice Starling—are brilliant investigators who relentlessly seek the truth.
In real life, not so much, as an appalling false arrest case in Texas makes clear. Earlier this month, the feds paid $402,000 in compensation to Elias Camacho Jr. after he was wrongly jailed for robbing a bank, according to Treasury Department litigation payment records.
Camacho’s lawsuit and subsequent findings of fact by U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Castaneda of the Western District of Texas are a scary reminder that waiving your right to counsel because you didn’t do anything wrong and have nothing to hide can be a bad idea. It’s also a cautionary tale of how eyewitness identification and polygraph results can make for terrible evidence.
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.
For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]
