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.
Welcome to America, friend. First time?
We should have written something when the country was formed. Maybe some stuff about unlawful detention or false imprisonment. A fair and speedy trial would be cool. Maybe we prevent cruel and unusual punishment while we are at it
That was the old days when a crime was a crime, even if it was an “official presidential act.”
Nuts, I really thought I was on to something
Judges have a lot of leeway to hold people in contempt of court. But because the US is so big and has so many judges, you’re bound to get a few shitty ones.
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
First sentence in the article. This is called being detained.
The judge is definitely am example of “if you have a hammer, then everything looks like a nail”.
You are being downvoted because you are wrong. Don’t try to spin it as if anyone thinks this was the right thing to do. It sounds EXACTLY like she was detained
If what you say is true, I’m on the judges side on this one. shrug In the end nothing outrageous happened.
The entire situation is outrageous. A child should not be handcuffed and forced to put on other clothes for falling asleep. Absolutely absurd