Jurists Back Man Jailed by Police Who Thought He Was His Twin

John B. Fairley kept telling Long Beach police he was not the one they wanted. The warrants were for his identical twin brother, Joe, not him.

But police jailed him for nearly two weeks, never bothering to check his fingerprints, even though they knew Fairley did indeed have a twin.

On Friday, a federal appeals court agreed that Long Beach had violated Fairley’s constitutional rights, upholding a lower court jury verdict against the city.

“Neither a fingerprint comparison nor Department of Motor Vehicles check was completed at any time during John’s 12-day detention,” noted a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. “Either would have immediately alerted the city it had the wrong man.”

Fairley, 36, was arrested in April 1997 after arguing with his Long Beach neighbor, who said he had a restraining order against Fairley.

It turned out there was no such order. But Long Beach police continued to hold Fairley on warrants for two citations issued against Joe B. Fairley, his twin, who was similar in height but weighed at least 60 pounds more.

“He said, ‘That’s my twin brother. I’m John. He’s Joe,’” recalled Fairley’s attorney, Robert Mann of Los Angeles. “They appear to have taken the attitude they didn’t need to do anything to determine if they had the right guy because John Fairley was close enough to Joe for government work.”

The Long Beach city attorney could not be reached for comment.

Mann said Fairley also filed a claim against Los Angeles County because he was held in the County Jail for most of the 12 days.

That claim was included among five class-action suits settled last year.

The suits accused the county of keeping inmates too long, strip-searching them and holding the wrong people on warrants.

Fairley, who is disabled from a work-related shoulder injury, was awarded compensatory damages of $11,250, plus attorney fees.