The mother of a 15-year-old girl who fell asleep in a Detroit courtroom and ended up in a jail uniform and handcuffs has sued the judge who took her into custody, and her attorneys said Wednesday the judge’s actions were inappropriate.
The girl fell asleep while on a field trip Aug. 13 in Judge Kenneth King’s 36th District Court courtroom in Detroit and he yelled at her, said Fieger Law Firm attorney James Harrington. When she fell asleep for a second time, King humiliated her in front of her peers, and on YouTube where the court proceedings were livestreamed for anyone to see, Harrington said.
“This is a very troubling case. We had a member of our bench berate, humiliate and essentially incarcerate a 15-year-old kid,” Harrington said at a press conference Wednesday announcing the lawsuit. “This was very, very real to her, very, very scary to her and somebody in a position of trust, somebody that was in a position of authority and power is threatening her about jail time, is threatening her by literally placing her in handcuffs.”
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Detroit, names King, the security guards in the courtroom and two court officers. It accuses King of malicious prosecution, unlawful arrest and prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false arrest and invasion of privacy.
Harrington said they not were asking for a specific amount of damages.
Todd Perkins, King’s attorney, declined to comment on the case specifically, but said King has always stood to protect children. He said King, with whom he went to law school, is “remorseful and sorry” if a young person was hurt.
“He only wants the best outcome for this young person and all young people. She matters. They matter. They are our future,” said Perkins in a statement.
The girl was visiting the courtroom on a field trip with the nonprofit The Greening of Detroit. Court was not in session, but King was a guest lecturer as a part of a vocational training the nonprofit put together, according to the lawsuit.
“You fall asleep in my courtroom one more time, I’m putting you in the back, understood?” King told her, according to video from the court’s YouTube page reported by WXYZ-TV (Channel 7). At another point he told her, “One thing you’ll learn about my courtroom is that I am not a toy. I am not to be played with.”
He berated her, ordered her to be jailed, handcuffed her and demanded she take off her clothes and dress instead in the uniforms prisoners wear in Wayne County, according to the lawsuit. He conducted a “fake trial” with her classmates and possibly his internet followers as her jurors and his audience, according to the lawsuit.
“Then, making a mockery of the justice guaranteed by the due process clauses of the United States Constitution, while panning the camera to focus upon his juvenile audience for the benefit of his internet fans, Defendant JUDGE KING asked (the teen’s) peers to serve as a fake jury of public opinion and decide whether to let her go home to her mother and grandmother, or to serve time in the juvenile jail that he had but moments before denigrated as unfit.”
King’s docket was temporarily suspended and he must undergo training to “address the underlying issues that contributed to this incident,” Chief Judge William McConico said in a statement last week. McConico said he cannot remove King from the bench, but the State Court Administrative Office approved the temporary suspension of King’s docket and imposed the training mandate.
The court’s chief judge said last week that King’s actions don’t reflect the 36th District Court’s commitment to providing access to justice without intimidation or disrespect.
“We regularly and actively welcome students to observe and engage with the judicial process, aiming to provide valuable educational experiences and foster familiarity with the justice system. We sincerely hope that this incident does not undermine our longstanding relationships with local schools,” McConico said.
Teen’s mother weighs in
The teen’s mother, Latoreya Till, said at a Southfield press conference that the fallout from King’s actions has been devastating. She was shocked when she heard what King said to her daughter and couldn’t believe it.
“It was unexpected of what the behavior from a grown man in a courtroom,” Till said. “I was speechless. I didn’t know how to handle it. I felt enraged. I felt sad. I wanted to cry for my own child, and at the same time, I wanted something to be done.”
Her daughter doesn’t want to go outside or be involved with anyone but family, Till said.
“She’s asking me, why did the judge do me like this, out of all the kids?” Till said. “She’s embarrassed and humiliated. And I can’t blame her. … I just want Judge King to take accountability for the way he humiliated my daughter.”
Till said she and her two daughters do not have a permanent home and are going back and forth between her mother’s and her aunt’s homes, which is why her daughter was sleepy in court. The homicide hearing the students were in attendance for forced the teen to “relive a traumatic event, causing her to shut down,” according to the lawsuit.
“It is apparent that he developed a plan for the amusement of his followers and fan base to cast (the teen), unwittingly, in what he later described as his own episode of ‘Scared Straight.'”
Lawyer: ‘Zero immunity’ for judge
Harrington said there is “zero immunity” for King regarding his actions in the courtroom.
“Immunity applies when a judge is acting as a judge in a court proceeding,” Harrington said. “This was extracurricular, this was outside of being a judge. There was no hearing going on. (The teen) wasn’t a litigant, she wasn’t a party, she wasn’t a witness, she wasn’t a lawyer, she wasn’t a court officer. She was there on a field trip. This occurred outside of the scope of a regular court proceeding.
“This was completely outside of the scope of what a judge should be allowed to do, within any realm of decency, but outside of any type of proceeding.
Nothing the girl said, even if it was disrespectful, could have warranted King handcuffing her, dressing her in a jail uniform and threatening to throw her in the juvenile detention facility, Harrington said.
“There isn’t anything she could’ve said that would have justified what he did in that moment,” he said. ” I don’t care what she said. I don’t care if she was tired and fell asleep. I don’t care about that.”
Harrington said he doesn’t know how much King’s actions related to the group of people who regularly tune in for his court docket. King has been criticized by attorneys in the past for commenting on the YouTube stream during hearings.
“When things like this happen, we have to hold people accountable. We can’t just say ‘well because this is a judge I’m not going to take this case,'” Harrington said.
kberg@detroitnews.com
