The American was held for 2.5 years in a psychiatric clinic, mistaking him for another

Justice is not portrayed blindfolded for nothing – this can mean not only impartiality, but also negligence. In Honolulu, the capital of the US state of Hawaii, a homeless man was mistaken for another and was sent to a psychiatric clinic with a prison regime for 2.5 years. Everything ended, we can say, well, but the unfortunate lost years of his life and received a psychological trauma.

Fifty-year-old Joshua Spriestersbach came to Hawaii in 2003 and settled with his sister Vedanta Griffith and her husband on the island of Oahu. But the man did not stay long in the family of a relative and soon went missing, going for a walk.

Griffith unsuccessfully searched for her brother for 16 years and was already sure that he was dead, but Joshua was alive – he just became a tramp. Why the American made such a decision is unknown to anyone, perhaps he did not want to be a burden in someone else's family, since he could not find a permanent job.

In 2017, Spristersbach was waiting in line outside a homeless shelter in Honolulu, where free soup was distributed daily. He accidentally fell asleep, and when he opened his eyes, he saw a policeman near him who was going to arrest him. At first, Joshua thought that his fault was that he had violated the authorities ' ban on sitting and lying on the sidewalks, but it turned out to be much worse.

The guardian of the law mistook Spristersbach for another person-Thomas Castleberry, who was hiding from the police after violating a probation period for drug possession in 2006. Joshua tried his best to convince the investigators that he was not a criminal, but an ordinary homeless man, but he only succeeded in being considered a madman.

Spristersbach was placed in a psychiatric clinic with a strict regime, where they kept crazy criminals. Since the man tried to defend his rights in the clinic, he was actively treated with strong drugs, including narcotic ones, for delirium.

The unfortunate prisoner demanded a lawyer and the state provided him with lawyers according to the law. But the most terrible thing was that the free lawyers also did not believe Joshua and considered him just a quarrelsome psycho with a violent imagination. Fortunately for Spristersbach, one of the doctors became interested in his stories and decided to try to identify the patient's identity.

Because of Joshua's lifestyle, it was not easy, but the work was not in vain – the doctor managed to determine that Spristersbach and Castleberry are different people. It turned out that when Castleberry was detained with illegal substances in Honolulu in 2006, Joshua was on another island and there are people who are ready to confirm this.

The psychiatrist contacted the police and the patient's identity was checked. When Joshua's fingerprints were taken and compared with the fingerprint card in the Castleberry case, there was no doubt that they were two different people. Digging deeper, the cops were surprised to find out that the real Castleberry had already managed to start in Alaska and since 2016 he has been "shaking" there for a solid period.

Joshua Spristersbach was immediately released from compulsory treatment and released. At the same time, the police's mistake was not recorded anywhere, and the victim of arbitrariness did not receive a single cent of compensation for the years spent in a mental hospital. Once on the outside, the unfortunate tramp immediately left the "hospitable" Hawaii and now lives with his sister in Vermont.

His stay in the psychiatric hospital did not pass without a trace for Spristersbach – his health, including mental, was seriously shaken. The man is terrified of strangers and does not show his nose to the street, fearing that he will be sent back to the clinic and will be treated for non-existent mental ailments.

Joshua's story is terrible, but life was much worse for Iwao Hakamada, who was convicted of someone else's murder and held in prison for 46 years.