County Liable for Damages After Woman Jailed For 96 Days

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A federal judge says a county is liable for damages to a Mississippi woman, who was jailed 96 days without seeing a judge, setting a jury trial in March, to determine the amount.

U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock, made the ruling Tuesday in the case of Jessica Jauch, who is suing Choctaw County and Sheriff Cloyd Halford.

Aycock had originally denied Jauch’s lawsuit claiming violations of her constitutional rights, but an appeals court reinstated the lawsuit last year, calling Jauch’s detention “unjust and unfair.”

The ruling comes as the county asks the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court or at least find the county doesn’t have to pay.

Jauch was jailed in 2012 and eventually cleared after video didn’t show her committing a crime.