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.
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.
How is it that a judge can just decide somebody can be arrested for no other reason than “they didn’t like their attitude”? If a crime hasn’t been committed and a person hasn’t been arrested, how does the judge have any say over what a private citizen is doing? I would expect them to have to have slightly more leeway over their courtroom and they can have people escorted out or whatever, but just being able to detain people for no reason seems like an abuse of power? Across the board it seems like the Judicial branch has too much power.
Do be clear, it doesn’t sound like she was actually arrested or actually detained at any point. The judge said he intended having her put on jail clothes and handcuffs to frighten her into taking court seriously, like a “life lesson” thing. It sounds like she mouthed off at him after he asked her to pay attention. His goal was to “scare her straight,” but he definitely should not have tried to reach her this way
Edit: I guess I’m being downvoted by people who think this judge did the right thing? Geez
If what you say is true, I’m on the judges side on this one. shrug In the end nothing outrageous happened.
He said he couldn’t arrest her so it was really just a display to show the kids what the system is like. It sounds like he singled her out because of the sleeping rather that asking for a volunteer. I can see that being embarrassing to a teenager to be called out, but is it really traumatic?
is it really traumatic
Have you ever woken up to being suddenly put in handcuffs?
Oh the TRAUMA!
