When Mario A. Garcia was arrested for drunken driving in Riverside County in 2012, his jailers ran a warrant check and rushed him to Los Angeles, where a man named Mario Garcia, with the same birth date, had been wanted in a drug-dealing case since 1994. There were a few disparities, it turned out — their middle initials, their fingerprints and their criminal records. Not to mention nine inches in height and 40 pounds in weight. Los Angeles County officers realized they had the wrong man three days later and released Garcia. But a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday he has grounds for a damage suit, potentially a class action on
