Spanish Judge Fined $162K for Jailing of Innocent Man

A Spanish judge who failed to release an acquitted man from jail because of an oversight has been fined $162,000 and suspended for a year.

Judge Adelina Entrena was found guilty of grave negligence by the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia, the Associated Press reports. She failed to notify the jail that defendant Jose Campoy was acquitted of a purse-snatching in December 2005, and Campoy was not released until a clerk noticed the error 15 months later.

Entrena said the mistake was because of a work backlog and insufficient staffing. The case “comes amid an uproar in Spain over a judicial system seen as overworked, underfunded and increasingly sloppy,” the AP story says. A recent strike by justice ministry workers created more backlogs.

In another recent case, a judge failed to order a nationwide arrest alert for a man convicted of sexually abusing his 5-year-old daughter, the Associated Press reports in a separate article. The defendant is now a suspect in the murder of another child, also 5 years old. The judge blamed the mistake on a staff shortage and a backlog of paperwork.