A teen was falling asleep during a courtroom field trip. She ended up in cuffs and jail clothes

[The Barbarian]

She's going to learn a lot more about the legal system, anyway.

Hopefully, not from the School of Hard Knocks.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

Teen girl sues Detroit judge who detained her after she fell asleep in courtroom

The lawsuit states Judge Kenneth King violated the teen's constitutional rights when he detained her after she fell asleep in his courtroom.

www.freep.com

 

[DaisyDay]

Obviously it doesn't excuse his behavior...he's supposed to be the adult in the room (and a person who's supposed to use good judgement...it's sort of in his job title), it's a field trip with kids after all.

But, I just felt it was important to have a little additional context since I could already see some of the media outlets have been leveraging the "poor blameless victim routine" (complete with the "look, here's an unrelated childhood picture of them looking sweet and innocent" shtick)

A local affiliate ran a clip of someone on tiktok discussing the story showing this picture.
View attachment 353498


Had the judge just stopped at the "having her removed to go sit in another room after the 2nd warning", and let the back-sass slide off and ignored it, he would've done nothing wrong.

Are you saying she doesn't look sweet and innocent in this picture?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Are you saying she doesn't look sweet and innocent in this picture?

Well of course she looks "like a sweet and innocent kid" in that pic...that's the point of why they show it. It's to tilt pubic opinion in a particular direction before all of the relevant details come out.

Not unlike when there's a negative encounter involving force, and the pundits and outlets they work for will trot out the person's 6th grade yearbook photo, or some innocent looking footage.

They do it in situations with adults too.

Like when that subway situation happened where the guy put the other guy in a chokehold and the guy ended up dying. (the Daniel Penny/Jordan Neely situation)

Rather than let people make up their minds based on the circumstances of the event. Within 24 hours, they were running pieces featuring the "oh look, here he is entertaining people on the subway doing a Michael Jackson impersonation" (odd they chose that one to show as opposed to his mug shot from when he was arrested for breaking a senior citizen's eye socket)

Sort of a "unless we make the victim look like an angel, there's a chance people may not side with us on this case, and we need this case in order to further a broader narrative"


The quicker they can coax the desired "verdict" out of the "court of public opinion", the harder to is to find impartiality if/when a case goes to actual court.

 

[The Barbarian]

Like when that subway situation happened where the guy put the other guy in a chokehold and the guy ended up dying. (the Daniel Penny/Jordan Neely situation)

Like saying "he put the other guy in a chokehold and the guy ended up dying." That's the equivalent of showing the perp's fifth grade picture.

He killed that guy. Don't sugarcoat it. Maybe he had a good reason to kill him. Maybe no. But he killed him. Just say it.

(odd they chose that one to show as opposed to his mug shot from when he was arrested for breaking a senior citizen's eye socket)

Don't you mean "he put hands on the old guy and he ended up having an broken eye socket?"

Which doesn't sound like it deserves the death penalty, even in your version.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Like saying "he put the other guy in a chokehold and the guy ended up dying." That's the equivalent of showing the perp's fifth grade picture.

He killed that guy. Don't sugarcoat it. Maybe he had a good reason to kill him. Maybe no. But he killed him. Just say it.


Don't you mean "he put hands on the old guy and he ended up having an broken eye socket?"

Which doesn't sound like it deserves the death penalty, even in your version.

I think you're getting fixated on the exterior details and semantics there, that was just an example to highlight the type of media manipulation to sway public opinion.

But I'll rephrase it if that'll make you feel better:

When Daniel Penny Choked the guy to death... media outlets immediately showed "happy go lucky" pictures and video footage of Jordan Neely doing MJ impersonations, to turn the public against Daniel Penny before he had his day in court.


With regards to this case (which obviously didn't involve anyone getting killed):

The immediate narrative was "look at this sweet innocent girl -- here's a pic of her after winning a science award in 7th grade. She dozed off in court, and that mean old judge put her in cuffs and threatened to legally punish her"

As if, they were afraid people may not come to the "right conclusion" about the event in question if left with just the facts, and felt the need to stack the deck. (which is just insulting everyone's intelligence)

It's amazing, those of us with functioning brains were able come up with the conclusion that "the judge was wrong" in this incident when given the relevant facts, we didn't need to be "tricked" into thinking she was a sweet little innocent angel to take her side, by showing innocent looking pictures and completely leaving out the fact that she "did the thing she was told not to do" multiple times, and then mouthed off to the judge when he asked that she removed after multiple warnings.

They did the same thing with the Trayvon Martin/Zimmerman case, as well as the Tamir Rice case.

The reality is, everyone's mom has pictures of everyone looking sweet and innocent, and just about everyone has at least a few family members who will say "they're a sweet child who loved to laugh"...trotting that kind of stuff out isn't relevant.


Heck, you probably think I'm not a great guy right now for what I've said here in this thread. But I bet if I were to ask my mom, she probably has several pictures of me at age 11 looking downright adorable lol

If I got pulled over and wrongly beaten up by a cop for a speeding infraction, would you need to see those pictures of me to say the cop is wrong, or would you be able to come to the reasonable conclusion of "I know him, he posts a bunch of stuff I think is total BS on a chat forum, but he certainly didn't deserve that for going 62 in a 55" without media trying to manipulate you into it?

 

[The Barbarian]

The immediate narrative was "look at this sweet innocent girl -- here's a pic of her after winning a science award in 7th grade. She dozed off in court, and that mean old judge put her in cuffs and threatened to legally punish her"

As if, they were afraid people may not come to the "right conclusion" about the event in question if left with just the facts, and felt the need to stack the deck. (which is just insulting everyone's intelligence)

The issue is "well, she was an obnoxious little snit, so the judge was free to abuse his power to teach her a lesson."

Well, no. Just as it's not O.K. to choke someone to death if he has been violent and unlikable in the past.

A separate standard of justice for people we don't like is to take one more step down the path to autocracy. It's a bad idea, especially in these times. The fact that the kid has some admirable traits in addition to being sarcastic, doesn't mean she should get extra privileges, either. The deal is, the judge abused his power, and was rightly disciplined. Shouldn't matter if the victim was Goody Two-shoes or Bratella deVille.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The issue is "well, she was an obnoxious little snit, so the judge was free to abuse his power to teach her a lesson."

Well, no. Just as it's not O.K. to choke someone to death if he has been violent and unlikable in the past.

A separate standard of justice for people we don't like is to take one more step down the path to autocracy. It's a bad idea, especially in these times. The fact that the kid has some admirable traits in addition to being sarcastic, doesn't mean she should get extra privileges, either. The deal is, the judge abused his power, and was rightly disciplined. Shouldn't matter if the victim was Goody Two-shoes or Bratella deVille.

If you notice, I never suggested that the judge was free to abuse his power...nor did I see anyone else do that in this thread. Everyone pretty much came to the consensus that the judge overstepped the line with his actions.

But this idea that media outlets and pundits need to "pad the deck" by trying to cram every situation into some sort of perfect "good vs. evil" dichotomy in order "steer everyone in a certain direction" is not only insulting to a lot of people, but it also tampers with the justice system for people who are going to be on the hot seat, as it's going to make things increasingly difficult when it comes time to try to get an unbiased jury put together.

For instance, whether Daniel Penny's intervention was right or wrong, or whether or not it was his actual intent to kill the guy, was he ever going to get a chance at a fair trial and impartial jury if everyone in the city has heard ad-nauseum (via media outlets and pundits) the story of "Mean vigilante on subway chokes happy-go-lucky homeless Michael Jackson impersonator"?

 

[trophy33]

USA - "the land of free". Frequently, its more tyrannical than the most of other countries and some cases are simply absurd.

 

[The Barbarian]

But this idea that media outlets and pundits need to "pad the deck" by trying to cram every situation into some sort of perfect "good vs. evil" dichotomy in order "steer everyone in a certain direction" is not only insulting to a lot of people, but it also tampers with the justice system for people who are going to be on the hot seat, as it's going to make things increasingly difficult when it comes time to try to get an unbiased jury put together.

That's been going on since there was media. There are relatively unbiased sources like Reuters, but it's smart to get your news from a variety of sources.

It was much worse in the age of Yellow Journalism, when a media mogul could inflame the public to get a war started. They didn't do it on their own, but their fake news contributed to the hysteria.

For instance, whether Daniel Penny's intervention was right or wrong, or whether or not it was his actual intent to kill the guy, was he ever going to get a chance at a fair trial and impartial jury if everyone in the city has heard ad-nauseum (via media outlets and pundits) the story of "Mean vigilante on subway chokes happy-go-lucky homeless Michael Jackson impersonator"?

Whether or not he intended to kill the guy determines whether or not it's intentional or negligent homicide. (It isn't murder, because there's no evidence he went in there intending to kill him)

 

[Belk]

Teen girl sues Detroit judge who detained her after she fell asleep in courtroom

The lawsuit states Judge Kenneth King violated the teen's constitutional rights when he detained her after she fell asleep in his courtroom.

www.freep.com

I doubt this will go anywhere. While the judges actions were wrong the proper corrective action is through the chief justice which is already in progress and judges have broad immunity within their courtroom to protect them from constantly being sued for doing their job.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

That's been going on since there was media. There are relatively unbiased sources like Reuters, but it's smart to get your news from a variety of sources.

It was much worse in the age of Yellow Journalism, when a media mogul could inflame the public to get a war started. They didn't do it on their own, but their fake news contributed to the hysteria.

But social media (and the traditional media leveraging those social platforms) has allowed the process to be "expedited".

Instead of MSNBC or Fox News waiting to get their "spun" or "heavily filtered" version in front of people, they don't have to wait for 7pm and hope that a bunch of people watch it, nor do they have to "get the information out in tomorrow's newspaper"

They can type up their preferred version, and get out it front of 10 million sets of eyes in the next 15 minutes.