CLEVELAND — The Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court said it regrets the error that led an accused murderer to be mistakenly released from the Cuyahoga County Jail Monday evening.
U.S. Marshals found Amarion Sanders, 22, in a vehicle on West 44th Street Wednesday morning after his accidental release sparked a manhunt.
Sanders is accused of aggravated murder in Derek Driskill's shooting death last September.
What went wrong
The court's statement said criminal cases with consecutive numbers were both randomly assigned to Judge Timothy J. McGinty's docket, "which is rare with 34 Judges on the bench."
McGinty, who is serving as a visiting judge in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, dismissed one of the two cases Monday.
When a worker with the court entered the information about the dismissal into their system, they mistakenly entered Sanders' case number.
Sanders's case number is CR-23-685908.
The other defendant's case number is CR-23-685909.
The information was then sent to the jail's records department.
Sanders was released around 6:30 p.m. Monday night, according to jail officials.
The court's statement also said, "Had the cases been on different dockets, the system would have flagged the error when it was entered."
Interim Chief of Corrections Nestor Rivera said the court and the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office notified them about the error at approximately 10 a.m. Tuesday morning.
The Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force found Sanders in a vehicle on West 44th Street at approximately 9:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.
The Cuyahoga Common Pleas Court and Cuyahoga County Jail officials said they will review their procedures to prevent another error from happening in the future.
"This incident is unfortunate and we're going to do our best to make sure that this type of incident doesn't occur again," Rivera said.
A worried family
After learning about Sanders' release, Driskill's family told News 5 they were concerned for their safety during an interview Tuesday.
“It’s not fair. There are so many people that are locked up for crimes that maybe they didn’t even commit, but when you have someone on videotape doing something, how do they get out mistakenly?” said Driskill’s wife, Andrea Johnson.
Johnson said Cuyahoga County leaders were apologetic, but she was still shocked this type of mistake could happen.
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“It’s really unfathomable," she said. "I just really don’t get it."
