Jailer Who Held U.S. Citizen Over Legal Status Must Face Suit

A civil rights suit may proceed against a jailer who continued to hold a U.S. citizen in custody under the erroneous belief she was in the country illegally, the Eleventh Circuit said.

The applicable Fourth Amendment law was established at the time and a reasonable jailer in Ashley Mills’s position wouldn’t have kept Judith Alcocer in custody, the unpublished per curiam opinion said.

After Alcocer was arrested for driving on a suspended license, Mills completed her intake form at South Carolina’s Bulloch County Detention Center. The form contained Alcocer’s identifying information and Social Security, but not her place of birth, ...