According to AP a teenager on a field trip to see a Detroit court ended up in jail clothes and handcuffs because a judge said he didn’t like her attitude.
Judge Kenneth King even asked other kids in the courtroom Tuesday whether the 16-year-old girl should be taken to juvenile detention, WXYZ-TV reported.
King, who works at 36th District Court, defended his actions.
“I wanted this to look and feel very real to her, even though there’s probably no real chance of me putting her in jail. That was my own version of ‘Scared Straight,’” King said, referring to a documentary about teen offenders in New Jersey.
The teen was seeing King’s court as part of a visit organized by The Greening of Detroit, a nonprofit environmental group. During the visit, King noticed the girl falling asleep, WXYZ reported.
“You fall asleep in my courtroom one more time, I’m gonna put you in back, understood?” the judge said, according to video of his remarks.
King then had the girl change into jail clothes and wear handcuffs.
“It was her whole attitude and her whole disposition that disturbed me,” the judge told WXYZ. “I wanted to get through to her, show how serious this is and how you are to conduct yourself inside of a courtroom.”
King also threatened her with time in juvenile detention before releasing her.
“I’ll do whatever needs to be done to reach these kids and make sure that they don’t end up in front of me,” the judge said.
The Greening of Detroit released a statement, saying the “young lady was traumatized.”
“Although the judge was trying to teach a lesson of respect, his methods were unacceptable,” chairperson Marissa Ebersole Wood said. “The group of students should have been simply asked to leave the courtroom if he thought they were disrespectful.”
Judge Aliyah Sabree, who has the No. 2 leadership post at the court, released a statement Wednesday night, saying King’s conduct “does not reflect the standards we uphold at 36th District Court.”
“I am committed to addressing this matter with the utmost diligence,” Sabree said.
“There were so many other ways in which to have helped that young girl learn,” said Larry Dubin, a professor at the University of Detroit Mercy law school.
The Teen’s Mom Speaks Out
According to ABC news Latoreya Till said how her 15 yr old daughter was handled by Judge King was demeaning and unfair.
Latoreya Hill was horrified when she saw the video of her daughter, Eva Goodman, in handcuffs.
“Would you want someone to treat your child like that? Would you even treat your child like that,”
Hill is a single mother of two and says Goodman, her eldest daughter, was signed up for a summer program with the Greening of Detroit nonprofit to keep Goodman busy. What was supposed to be an educational field trip to 36th District Court Tuesday, turned into a traumatizing moment for both her and her daughter.
Judge King, not liking the teen’s attitude and seeing her falling asleep, placed Goodman in handcuffs and a jail uniform.
“I think maybe she needs to go to the juvenile detention facility,” Judge King said in court. “Why are you being disrespectful to this court? You sleep in bed at your home, not at court.”
Hill says Goodman was falling asleep because the family does not have a permanent residence at the moment, and are just trying to make ends meet.
“To belittle her in front of the whole world and her friends, to make her feel even more worse about our situation,” Hill said through tears. “The fact that he was talking about ‘you go home and get in your bed’, how do you know my baby got a home, how do you know my baby got a bed, her own bed she could sleep in, she don’t have that right now, so she was tired,” Hill said through tears.
ABC spoke to Judge King Tuesday, who stands by his actions to discipline the child after showing him “attitude”.
“Do I have any reservations? Do I think I was heavy-handed in what I did? No, I don’t, because I’ll do whatever it needs to be done to reach these kids and make sure that they don’t end up in front of me,” Judge King said. “That was my own version of scared straight.”
Hill responded and said her daughter didn’t need to be taught any lessons and is barely getting by at home with what life has thrown her.
“You didn’t scare nobody straight, you made a parent upset, you scared my child she was nervous she didn’t know how to act. She never been inside no courtroom,” she said.
Hill frustrated with how this was handled, removed Goodman from the summer program and stands up for her daughter now, after she couldn’t stand up for her in that courtroom.
“My baby’s been struggling, but she been holding on tight, she’s been going to school, she get good grades, she don’t get into no problems,” Hill said.
King said he reached out to the family to help mentor Goodman, the family says they’re not interested.
As a matter of fact he has been removed from the Docket.
Following “a swift and thorough internal investigation,” King was removed from his docket and will “undergo the necessary training to address the underlying issues that contributed to this incident,” Chief Judge William McConico said in a statement Thursday.
The nonprofit group, which works to improve the infrastructure and landscaping in Detroit, said Tuesday that it had spoken with the teen and her mom and that “the young lady was traumatized by the Judge’s unnecessary disciplinary treatment and scolding.”
