Jailed 96 days on bogus charge: It is no one's fault?

[...] a federal judge dismissed her case against Choctaw County and Sheriff Cloyd Halford last month, ruling that because she had been indicted by a grand jury on the felony drug charge, none of her constitutional and legal rights were violated.

The outcome has flummoxed civil liberties advocates who have been waging legal battles to reform Mississippi's criminal justice system, which provides almost no state funding for public defenders.

The American Civil Liberties Union is working state by state to force increased funding for public defenders, particularly in places where court-appointed lawyers depend on stingy local governments and court fees to get paid.

[...] a Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics video showed Jauch asking to borrow the $40.

[...] Jauch's lawyer in her federal suit, Victor Fleitas, said no one knew that because investigators and prosecutors apparently never watched the video before persuading the grand jury to charge her with selling a controlled substance.

[...] she wasn't arraigned until the next court term in Choctaw County, three months later.

"Put simply, the plaintiff was arrested and held on a valid felony grand jury indictment that established the existence of probable cause," Aycock wrote.

[...] the Fourth Amendment is not implicated here.