Bad People's Court

Out there in sunny Detroit city, a young lady of 15 years was on a field trip with a nonprofit group called Greening Of Detroit, which describes itself as a "non profit environmental group... We plant trees, provide green jobs and job training for adults and youth."

It sounds like they are people trying to do good things for people, and the young lady in question was with them on a field trip designed to teach participants about the legal system, let them watch a real trial happen, and even speak to a judge.

Unfortunately, she dozed off. It happens. Trust me. Most courtrooms, especially warm ones after lunch, are maximum doze-atoriums.

Judges are fond of pontificating from the bench, and one popular theme they expound upon is "You have choices in these situations." Presiding Judge Kenneth King had several choices before him in that situation. He could have 

a) ignored it

b) discreetly sent the bailiff to gently tap her on the shoulder   - or - 

c) locked her up.

You know me well enough to know already, he chose "c." Hizzoner told her to leave the courtroom:  “You fall asleep in my courtroom one more time, I’m going to put you in the back (holding cell), understood?”  

You also should know, the attorneys were not in the courtroom yet when this petty imbroglio occurred. But when the student came back,  “She was first detained in a room facing the court from where she could hear the judge call cases,” her attorney, Gary Felty, said. 

Then, a female corrections officer handcuffed her, moved her into another room and asked her to change her clothes, where she sat for two hours, separated from her group. Oh, and all this was shown live on the judge's YouTube channel, heaping more onto the humiliation of this young lady.

Her parents (she is not being identified in news stories because she committed no crime) filed papers accusing King of malicious prosecution, unlawful arrest and incarceration, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false arrest and imprisonment, unlawful seizure and detention, and invasion of privacy.

King has been suspended from hearing cases and sent to remedial training. He was set to teach two classes at Wayne State University, and those have been reassigned to a judge with a smidgeon of common sense, one hopes.

The judge has his own attorney in this matter, a fellow named Todd Perkins, who refused comment beyond saying that King “only wants the best outcome for this young person and all young people.”

Attorney Felty said she is a good student with dreams of becoming a cardiothoracic surgeon. “Who knows how many people saw her be portrayed as a juvenile delinquent?”

Here's the awful, awful part.  While the judge was embarrassing the girl, he told her to "go home and get in your bed."

She has no home. She has no bed. Her mother says the girl was tired because the family has no permanent home, and that King belittled her daughter “in front of the whole world and her friends, to make her feel even more worse about our situation.”

Hizzoner defended himself to the local news this way: 

“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.”

And, that he wanted all this to look real and feel real to her,  “even though there’s probably no real chance of me putting her in jail.”

That last sentence alone says a million sad things.