Deaf, Mentally Ill Man Mistakenly Jailed for 2 Years

A deaf, mentally ill man who spent two years in a District of Columbia jail after his misdemeanor charges had been dropped said Friday he was ignored, mistreated and kept in isolation.

Joseph Heard, 42, was released from jail Aug. 13 and taken to a mental hospital after officials discovered the error and retrieved his file from storage.

“The fact that I had no communication whatsoever--the isolation was the hardest thing to deal with,” said Heard, through an American Sign Language interpreter, at St. Elizabeths Hospital. “TV kept me going, and I kept the hope that I would be free one day.”

The confusion started in 1999, when police took Heard to jail rather than back to St. Elizabeths after his case for trespassing on George Washington University property was dismissed in court.

Court documents were supposed to arrive at the jail. They never did, and no one followed up to ensure he was released. His file was archived about a year ago after it was mislabeled inactive.

“Joe was lost in the system,” said W. Thomas Stovall, a lawyer helping investigate the case for Heard. “The only thing we have said to the Department of Corrections is that they are to stay away from our client.”

A D.C. Department of Corrections official said Friday it would not comment on the case.

Stovall said Heard can neither hear nor speak, but he can read and write. The attorney said that when Heard was arrested, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Officials at St. Elizabeths Hospital, where Heard is staying, said his diagnosis remains the same.

Heard said he wrote notes to nurses and doctors in the jail’s mental health unit, where he stayed in a solitary cell. He said they ignored him and would throw his letters away.

Stovall said he was Heard’s only visitor in two years.