What was supposed to be a joyous Christmas celebration turned into a nightmare for Jennifer Heath Box, when Broward County, Florida, sheriff’s deputies arrested her and threw her in jail for three days—all because they refused to check their paperwork to make sure they had the right person. Because of indifference of police and jail personnel, Jennifer missed Christmas with her family and, most importantly, missed seeing her son before he deployed overseas with the United States Marines.
Police did have a warrant for “Jennifer”—but not this Jennifer. This Jennifer had never been the subject of an arrest warrant and had never been charged with a crime. The Jennifer that police wanted was 23 years younger and five inches shorter than the Jennifer they arrested. She also lived in a different county, had a different driver’s license number, had different hair and eye colors, and even had a different last name—all information that police and jail personnel ignored.
While the wrong Jennifer spent her Christmas in jail, terrified and confused as to how something like this could happen, her family worked around the clock to get Jennifer out. But the more they learned, the more it became clear that Jennifer was sitting in jail because of an obvious mistake—one that Broward County officials failed to rectify even after they learned that Jennifer had been wrongfully arrested and incarcerated, and one to this day they’ve never apologized for.
Jennifer’s wrongful arrest and detention violated both the Fourth Amendment’s right to be free from unreasonable seizures, and the constitutional right to due process. Government officials should be held accountable when their mistakes lead to violations of constitutional rights. Jennifer is teaming up with the Institute for Justice (IJ) to hold Broward County and its officials responsible for their mistakes and to ensure that this nightmare does not happen to someone else.
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A celebration turns into a “nightmare before Christmas” as Jennifer is arrested and thrown in jail on Christmas Eve
Jennifer Heath Box, who lives just outside of Houston, Texas, was about to disembark from a cruise ship in Port Everglades, Florida with her family. She, her husband, her brother, her sister-in-law (also Jennifer Heath), and her nephews had been on the ship for the last six days celebrating the news that Jennifer’s brother Mark had just beaten cancer for the second time. When the cruise ship returned on the morning of Christmas Eve, 2022, Jennifer was excited to get back to Texas to spend Christmas with her children, particularly her son Joshua, who had just graduated from training with the Marines and was going to be deployed to Japan for three years on December 27. That Christmas would be the last time for three years that all of Jennifer’s children could be together to celebrate.
But when Jennifer scanned her driver’s license to disembark from the ship, she was immediately surrounded by ship security and members of the Broward County Sheriff’s Department, including Deputy Peter Peraza. That’s when they told her that there was a warrant out for her arrest. Jennifer was shocked and confused. Aside from minor traffic violations, she’d never been in trouble with law enforcement. Jennifer’s confusion grew when she learned that the warrant was for the charge of “endangering a child under 15.” Jennifer’s children were 18, 20, and 29 years old at the time.
As it turns out, there was no warrant for the arrest of Jennifer Heath Box. The subject of the warrant was Jennifer Delcarmen Heath. And although the two women shared two-thirds of a name, that’s where the similarities ended. Jennifer Delcarmen Heath was 23 years younger than Jennifer Heath Box. She was also a 4’11” Hispanic woman with medium-toned skin, brown eyes, and black hair. Jennifer Heath Box was 5’4” and Caucasian with fair skin, blue-gray eyes, and red hair. The two women also had different driver’s license numbers, Harris County System Person Numbers, social security numbers, and addresses in different counties. The warrant was also for someone who endangered their one-year-old baby. Jennifer Heath Box had children older than the mother wanted in Texas. Anyone reading the warrant should have known that Jennifer Heath Box was not the person Texas police were looking for.
Deputy Peraza and other officials may have read the warrant, but they either ignored or overlooked the myriad differences between the woman wanted by Texas and the woman in front of them in Florida and proceeded to arrest Jennifer. Jennifer was humiliated as she was handcuffed in front of her husband and other passengers and walked to a waiting police car. She was transported to the Broward County Jail by Deputy Peraza, who continued to ask her questions about her eye color and her middle name. Jennifer’s responses—that she had blue eyes and that her middle name was Heath, not her last name—should have further made Deputy Peraza realize that he was arresting the wrong person.
If that wasn’t enough, when booking personnel at the Broward County Jail scanned Jennifer’s driver’s license, they told Deputy Peraza that there were no outstanding warrants for her. Nevertheless, without double checking the warrant, doing a basic search on his computer, or calling anyone in Texas to verify the information, Deputy Peraza insisted that he had the right person and that Jennifer should be booked into custody. It was then that Jennifer realized she would be spending her holiday in jail. Her mind immediately went to Joshua, and she worried she would not be able to see him before his deployment.
Jennifer suffers horrible conditions in jail while her family works to free her
To say that the conditions in jail were difficult for Jennifer would be an understatement. Jennifer was booked, fingerprinted, and had her mugshot taken. She was ordered to strip down while officers searched her entire body. She was given a prison uniform and a blanket, but that blanket did nothing to protect her from the abnormally cold temperatures in the jail cells. Jennifer was freezing while the guards were in coats, hats, and gloves. The guards also pumped death metal music into the cells at all hours. The first night, Jennifer recalls witnessing a fight in the men’s cell. The guards did not respond for over thirty minutes, forcing Jennifer and the other inmates to listen to screaming and witness acts of violence. Jennifer recalls covering her ears and staying quiet, not wanting any trouble, until the guards finally intervened.
On Christmas Day, Jennifer went before a magistrate judge. But she was told not to speak to the judge, and she wasn’t represented by counsel, so she had no opportunity to explain the situation. Nevertheless, neither the judge nor the prosecutor at the hearing compared Jennifer’s fingerprints or her information with that of the real Jennifer Delcarmen Heath. Had they done so, they might have realized the mistake, and Jennifer could have been released. But the judge simply denied bond and Jennifer had no way to protest. She was told she would be transferred to the Broward County Paul Rein Detention Center to await extradition to Texas.
Conditions there were no better. Although Jennifer had done nothing wrong, she was treated like a criminal. Jail officials were demeaning and condescending to her. If she wanted to shower, she was forced to do so behind a thin curtain where male and female guards alike could watch. A male inmate repeatedly tried to enter her cell while she was alone. As the days went by, Jennifer became upset and disheartened, especially when she realized she would certainly not get out in time to say goodbye to Joshua.
Meanwhile, Jennifer’s husband Kyle and her brother Mark—a police officer himself—were working around the clock to figure out what happened and how to get Jennifer released. After several calls to various attorneys in Texas, Mark and Kyle learned that Jennifer’s arrest and detention had in fact been a mistake. Jennifer’s driver’s license picture was mistakenly attached to the warrant for Jennifer Delcarmen Heath. With this information, Mark called Broward County, sure that someone would help.
Broward County officials realize their mistake but refuse to release Jennifer
Getting someone to help rectify this mistake turned out to be more difficult than Mark could have imagined. After making several calls to several different departments with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, Mark spoke to a Deputy Thorpe at the Paul Rein Detention Center. He explained the situation, but Deputy Thorpe was unwilling to help. He claimed that any request for Jennifer to be released had to come from Jennifer herself—while she was in jail. Jennifer, of course, had told officers they had the wrong person the whole time; yet no one had done anything to verify her identity.
Mark then called Harris County, Texas, hoping they could help. Harris County asked that someone in Broward County send Jennifer’s fingerprints so that they could confirm she was not the subject of the warrant. But Deputy Thorpe refused to send the information unless Harris County contacted them directly. Mark called both departments several times, sure that if the two just exchanged information, they could easily resolve their mistake, and Jennifer could be free. But he was stonewalled, and an innocent Jennifer continued to spend her holidays in jail.
While Mark was frantically calling around, Jennifer’s husband Kyle kept her informed of their efforts twice daily when Jennifer was allowed to use the phone. By the afternoon of December 26, Kyle told Jennifer than an attorney they hired figured out that someone in Harris County mistakenly attached her DMV photo to the other Jennifer’s arrest warrant. They were just still struggling to get someone in Broward County to listen. Later that evening, a jail official came to Jennifer’s cell and told her that they knew she wasn’t the Jennifer that was wanted by the state of Texas. But inexplicably, he told her that Broward County would not release her until Texas either arrested the correct Jennifer or sent someone to Florida to collect her. Not only was it Jennifer’s responsibility to alert Broward County officials to their mistake, but once she and her family did, that was still not enough to get her out of jail.
To this day, Broward County officials refuse to acknowledge any wrongdoing
Thanks to continued efforts by Jennifer’s brother Mark, Broward County released Jennifer the morning of December 27, over 75 hours after her arrest. Jennifer was relieved to be out of jail but devastated that she had missed Christmas with her children, and more importantly, that she had missed saying goodbye to Joshua before his deployment. Jennifer frantically tried to get a flight to Seattle to see Joshua before he deployed. There was a freeze in South Florida, though, and she couldn’t get any flights out once she was finally free. Jennifer and Kyle eventually had to rent a car and drive across the state to find a flight back to Texas.
Jennifer and her family sought answers for months after she was released. She returned to Texas and worked with police there to disassociate her identity with Jennfer Delcarmen Heath. She also contacted several Broward County officials and the federal government hoping someone would be held accountable for wrongfully arresting and detaining her despite all the evidence that she was innocent. But Broward County not only refused to acknowledge their mistake, but insisted that deputies did everything right.
This isn’t the first or second time that Broward County put the wrong person in jail because it failed to verify their identity. In fact, mistaken identity arrests like this are frighteningly common. And people without law enforcement connections—such as Jennifer’s brother Mark—often stay in jail for much longer. But innocent people should not pay the price when government officials make a mistake. Jennifer is now teaming up with IJ to hold Broward County officials accountable for what they did to her.
The legal claims
The Fourth Amendment protects the right to be free from unreasonable seizures. That includes mistaken arrests and wrongful overdetentions. Broward County officials did not have a warrant to arrest Jennifer Heath Box, and they had no probable cause to believe she had committed a crime when she disembarked from the cruise ship. In fact, the officers had six days during Jennifer’s cruise. It should have been obvious there was no basis to arrest Jennifer given the many differences between her and the subject of the warrant. Furthermore, there were multiple times during Jennifer’s detention that jail officials knew or should have known they had the wrong person in custody, yet they ignored the evidence and kept Jennifer in jail anyway.
Jennifer is bringing a claim against Broward County and the deputies and jail officials responsible for violating her Fourth Amendment rights. Two other federal courts of appeals have already held that overdetentions like Jennifer’s implicate the Fourth Amendment, 1 but that should be true no matter where you live or where you are detained.
This is not the first mistaken identity arrest that IJ has been involved in. Last year, IJ filed an amicus brief on behalf of David Sosas all over the country in support of a David Sosa who had been wrongfully arrested and detained by Martin County, Florida, twice because of a warrant for another David Sosa in Texas. There, the Eleventh Circuit held that it was not a violation of the Due Process Clause to wrongfully arrest and detain someone—as long as that detention lasts for only three days. Jennifer wants to change that by bringing a claim under the Due Process Clause too, because the Constitution does not have a three-day loophole for violations of individual rights.
Jennifer’s case is also part of IJ’s larger Project on Immunity and Accountability, which seeks to hold government officials accountable for egregious violations of constitutional rights. When government officials make a mistake, whether it is arresting the wrong person, or storming the wrong house, those officials—not innocent people—should pay the price.
The Litigation Team
Jennifer is represented by IJ Attorney Jared McClain and Litigation Fellows Bobbi Taylor and Tahmineh Dehbozorgi.
About the Institute for Justice
The Institute for Justice (IJ) is a national nonprofit law firm that litigates to protect Americans’ liberty. As part of IJ’s project on immunity and accountability, IJ works to uphold the Fourth Amendment, to guarantee due process of law, and to combat qualified immunity—a court-created doctrine that frustrates government accountability and bars the vindication of constitutional rights.
