Dembe, when asked recently if anything could prevent future clerical errors, said that clerks need to be better trained but that it's not feasible to review each document.
Judge Lerner said he didn't think the case signaled a need "where the whole system needs to be changed."
He added: "The cure or remedy for this type of error is for everyone involved to be more careful. I learned that lesson in this case. I am more careful."
Lerner said the system could be improved if the clerk filled out a single online document, which the judge would sign electronically, and which then would be sent by computer to the prison.
Dembe agreed that "to the extent we can do things electronically and compress things . . . I think that's a good idea."
Gone, and unaware
The Philadelphia Police Department declined to release a photo of Sanchez, citing its policy of not releasing mug shots beyond 30 days of an arrest.
Sanchez lived on Sheridan Street near Oregon Avenue, in South Philadelphia, with a few male roommates, neighbors said.
On the day of the accident, he was driving a white truck owned by GTM Landscaping. A call to the business owner, George T. Maloney, was referred to attorney Katherine Douglas. Douglas declined to comment.
Sanchez's neighbors, Robert Pearce, 48, Robin Zeoli, 48, and Leo Mari, 46, said they had never spoken to him, but had sometimes seen him coming home in the evening drunk.
They said they realized who he was after he was arrested, and then they no longer saw him.
William Bowe, Sanchez's court-appointed attorney, said he found out that Sanchez was not in state prison when the D.A.'s office asked Lerner to issue a bench warrant for him.
He said he has no idea where Sanchez lived in Mexico and had no contact with Sanchez's family.
"I doubt he understood he was wrongly released," Bowe said.
Bowe said Sanchez "was very remorseful" for driving drunk and killing another man.
