A Detroit Judge who placed a 15-year-old girl in handcuffs after she fell asleep and “disrespected” him while visiting his courtroom has been removed from the docket.
Judge Kenneth King chose to teach the teenager a lesson in respecting the law as she toured his courtroom in the 36th District Court while on a trip with Detroit-based nonprofit, the Greening of Detroit. The organization had taken a group of minors there so they could learn more about legal proceedings in the courtroom.
Colleen Robar, the PR representative for the Greening of Detroit, said in a statement on Tuesday that as the day unfolded, King “chose to make an example of a 15-year-old girl in front of her peers.”
“He made her wear handcuffs and a jail uniform and yelled at her for falling asleep in his courtroom,” Robar said in the statement. “Although the Judge was trying to teach a lesson of respect, his methods were unacceptable.”
According to video of the court livestream obtained by WXYZ-TV of Detroit, King also threatened the teen with time at the juvenile detention facility, but eventually let her go.
King told WXYZ it wasn’t the teen’s falling asleep that prompted him to reprimand her. “It was her whole attitude and her whole disposition that disturbed me,” he said, adding that his objective was to “get through to her” and teach her how serious it is to be in a court of law.
“That’s not something that normally happens. But I felt compelled to do it because I didn’t like the child’s attitude,” King told the station. “I haven’t been disrespected like that in a very long time. It was my version of scared straight.”
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.
In her statement, Cobar said that if King was displeased with the behavior of the minors visiting the courtroom, he should have simply asked them to leave.
The Greening of Detroit said in a statement 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.” Latoreya Till, the mother of the teenager who was punished in court, told NBC News her daughter is having trouble understanding why the judge would “do that to her,” and has been having trouble sleeping and eating since the incident.
When announcing King’s removal from the docket on Thursday, McConico said the court, “known as ‘the people’s court,’ remains deeply committed to providing access to justice in an environment free from intimidation or disrespect. The actions of Judge King on August 13th do not reflect this commitment.”
