Plainfield Woman Spends Months In Jail After 'Technical Mistake'

PLAINFIELD, IL — A local woman is out of prison this week after spending more than four months there due a "technical mistake," The Herald-News first reported.

Tessah Mitchell, 37, was arrested in September for failing to register as a sex offender. Police say she kidnapped an infant more than two decades ago after suffering a miscarriage at the age of 18. The child was returned unharmed, and Mitchell served most of a 13-year sentence for the non-sex related offense. Nonetheless, ever since she has been on the Illinois Sex Offender registry, which, among other conditions, requires her to notify the state within three days of changing employers.

Mitchell didn't change employers, but her employer did move, and she failed to update her employer's address with state authorities, according to prosecutors. A warrant was issued for Mitchell's arrest last year after staff at a Plainfield day care called police when Mitchell tried to register her two children for the program.

Will County Judge Dan Rippy called it a "technical mistake," according to The Herald-News, but one that nonetheless left her in prison, separated from her children for months.

Despite completely turning her life around, according to her attorney, Will County Assistant Public Defender Samantha LaRowe, Mitchell's inclusion on the state sex offender registry still complicates many aspects of her life. She has petitioned, unsuccessfully, to be transferred to another registry that carries fewer restrictions.

After her arrest, Mitchell's bond was set at $150,000, a sum the American Civil Liberties Union called "punitive and excessive." Mitchell would have to have come up with 10 percent of that, or $15,000, in order to go home pending trail.

According to the ACLU, a person's ability to get out of jail often depends on the amount of money in their bank account, even when that person hasn't been convicted of a crime.

"Poorer Americans and people of color often can't afford to come up with money for bail, leaving them stuck in jail awaiting trial, sometimes for months or years. Meanwhile, wealthy people accused of the same crime can buy their freedom and return home," according to the group's website. "Across the country, money bail is set at levels that are far too high for many people or their families to pay. Defendants face an impossible choice: sit in jail as the case moves through the system; pay a nonrefundable fee to a for-profit bail bonds company; or plead guilty and give up the right to defend themselves at trial."

Mitchell pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of failing to register as a sex offender, a felony. She was sentenced to probation and time served. Two other charges related to visiting the daycare were dropped.

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