Updated 8/16/24 at 3:30 p.m. ET
Welp, the Detroit judge who forced a 15-year-old Black girl to don handcuffs and a jail uniform for falling asleep in the courtroom just got some bad news.
This whole week, 36th District Court Judge Kenneth King dragged for his actions against Eva Goodman. Despite previous assertions that his harsh response to her dozing was necessary, King’s behavior got him removed from his docket, per CBS News.
In a statement released Thursday, Chief Judge William McConico said the decision came after a “swift and thorough internal investigation.” King is now ordered to undergo the “necessary training” to address the “underlying issues” that contributed to the stunt.
“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 wrote.
In another statement from Chief Judge Pro Tem Aliyah Sabree, she stated the court does not condone King’s actions. In reaction to the decision, Eva’s mother, Latoreya Till, told NBC it’s a “lesson learned for him” for making a lesson out of her daughter.
Detroit Teen’s Mother Speaks Out
Till previously told The Detroit Free Press what probably made her daughter so tired was their current struggle with housing insecurity.
“We have to bounce around currently because we don’t have a permanent address. And so, that particular night, we got in kind of late. And usually, when she goes to work, she’s up and planting trees or being active,” Till told the outlet.
The exhaustion resulted in Eva dozing off in the courtroom she was visiting while on a field trip with a local organization. Judge Kenneth King shouted at her to wake up, per a court recording. However, her response to him, which he took as “an attitude” led him to make an example of her - ordering her to be handcuffed and dressed into a green jail uniform.
Till told the Free Press her daughter didn’t understand the gravity of the situation being she’s never been in a courtroom or done anything to put herself there.
“[King] was being a big bully to a child that was sleeping and unaware of the etiquette of a courtroom, because she’s never been there, she’s never been in trouble. She’s not a problem child,” Till said to the Free Press.
Till said the situation left Eva feeling hurt, scared and unmotivated to go to work. She said her daughter also feels as though her peers worked against her in reference to King forcing the field trip group to vote whether she should be sent to juvenile detention.
It’s unclear what their next steps are but Till told the outlet she will be meeting with an attorney.
What Happened?
The Greening of Detroit, a local nonprofit, took a group of students on a field trip as part of their three-week summer program Tuesday, per WXYZ. The agenda was to visit the 36th District Court to watch a trial and have the chance to speak to the judge, King. Before each side of the pending case entered the courtroom, King took time to answer some of the students’ questions, per a now-deleted court recording.
However, during the Q&A, King spotlighted Goodman who appeared to be dozing off to sleep in the spectating bench. In response, he’s heard in the video telling her if she fell asleep once more time in his courtroom, he would “put her in the back.” King then said the teen gave him “an attitude,” with no specification as to what she said. Whatever it was, it set him off.
“One thing you’ll learn about my courtroom is that I am not a toy. I’m not to be played with,” he says to the teen in the recording.
In the video, King ordered the girl to change into a jail uniform, be handcuffed, and sit in the detainment area. He then threatened to send the girl to do real jail time at a juvenile detention center. “I’m gonna go to sleep tonight while you’re sitting in the juvenile detention facility,” he said. King followed this stunt with having the teen’s peers vote as to whether she should be sent to the detention center.
Ultimately, he took his proverbial foot off her neck, but the whole situation left some wondering if that whole thing was necessary. Online users, specifically, dragged King for being nasty and inappropriate toward the teen.
“Poor girl, you never know what she’s dealing with at home or why she’s so tired. His actions are inexcusable,” wrote one X user.
“This isn’t teaching her courtroom etiquette by having her peers vote to jail her if ANYTHING this has destroyed relationships. If anything it has reinforced a lot of the negative attitudes people in Detroit and other cities have about the court system,” wrote another.
When asked about the criticism, King insisted the incident was a teaching lesson, describing it as his own version of the 2010s television show “Beyond Scared Straight.”
“I wanted to get through to her, show how serious this is and how you are to conduct yourself inside of a courtroom. That’s not something that normally happens. But I felt compelled to do it because I didn’t like the child’s attitude. I haven’t been disrespected like that in a very long time,” he said.
The organization who hosted the trip called King’s conduct “unacceptable” in a statement provided to WXYZ, and that King should have asked them to leave the courtroom instead. They added that after speaking to the girl’s family, that they learned she was “traumatized by the Judge’s unnecessary disciplinary treatment and scolding.”