‘This ain’t justice’: typo lets accused murderer go free before police can catch him

A 22-year-old murder suspect was accidentally released from an Ohio jail due to a “typo error,” but was remanded in custody after hours on the run.

Amarion Sanders was charged in October 2023 with aggravated murder and other charges in connection with the death of 39-year-old Derek Driskill. He has been in jail since his arrest for failing to post $1 million bail.

But on Monday, June 24, Sanders was fired.

The case number in an unrelated case was misspelled and the Sanders case was mistakenly dismissed, as the judge wrote in a docket entry: “Unfortunately, due to a clerical error by the court, the defendant was released from the county jail.”

The judge then ordered police to take him into custody to “return him to the county jail as soon as possible.”

Records show Sanders was arrested again on Wednesday. It is unclear where Sanders went or what he did during his hours of freedom.

Andrea Johnson, Driskill’s wife, shared the news Tuesday that her husband’s murder suspect had been released.

“I don’t think it’s fair. This is not justice, this is not a matter of our family’s safety. I mean, he’s on the street and he could do this to someone else,” Johnson said Nov 8.

According to the website, Sanders was involuntarily fired almost exactly nine months after her husband was killed in a September 2023 shooting in Cleveland.

When Driskill died, she said: “Of course I was heartbroken. I didn’t want to believe it, but I thought everything would be fine, but two days later he died.

After Sanders’ accidental release, Andrea’s sister wrote on Facebook, “We do not forget the unforgivable mistake Cuyahoga County made and the additional trauma it caused, but we are grateful to law enforcement for getting him off the streets so quickly. Thank you. Please continue to pray for my sister and their children. We have a long way to go.”

The Cuyahoga County Attorney’s Office provided Fox 8 with a statement following the incident: “The case involving defendant Amarion Sanders was inadvertently dismissed Monday afternoon due to a clerical error made by the court. Our office did not file any motion to dismiss the complaint. Our office immediately notified the court Tuesday morning of the error.”

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court told the outlet that while it cannot “discuss an open case, we deeply regret this error.”