The Kids of Rutherford County - Ep. 3
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The two attorneys, west Clark in mark downer, we're feeling pretty good. They just got ta fifteen year old kid at a solitary confinement. And that felt like a big Victory against judge that import.

They'd also decided to team up for real form of a firm of their own called dark Clark. IT had no real office, no business cards. But I did have one very specific goal.

The goal was to get out, here's mark, to not be juvenile core lawyers anymore, because I was too much time for too little money.

And they needed the money. While the work of juvenile court was steady, the pay was low as far as attorneys go courter point cases were capped at fifty box an hour. West had law school loans and was still living in his mother in laws house.

Mark was a little more flush, thanks to a sid gig doing document review for higher paid lawyers. But he also had a kid and mortgage for his house in office. So they started to private practice that would take civil cases, personal injury, business disputes. They knew I would take some time to really get established, but they had faith. They both remember, in early case, west brought in from adult court that seem promising .

as a kind of mine who his foot was injured during his jail intake process, he ended up hiring the foot amputated.

So we followed this lawsuit for, like millions of dollars. And IT turned out fairly quickly. We learned that like his leg was supposed to be cut off before he ever went into jail. So that was our first one that we thought we're gonna millions.

Instead, they were out of pocket about four hundred bucks for the filing fees, plus other expenses. And things only went downhill from there.

So there was like a slip and fall, and he had fAllen down.

Oh my, the sex .

offenders.

That was a terrible case.

Not a single one of that was terrible. Not as soon one of those worked.

out. Most of their cases were duds right out of the gate, and even the ones that paid out didn't result in much. One client had so little money he offered to pay mark with a homemade painting of lake lowe's .

in my bathroom right now.

And it's well, they're hustling to find cases outside the juvenile court that marking west got a call from a lawyer at the acari e asking if they wanted to take on some new clients. Some kids from a school called hob good elementary. They've been arrested for not stepping in to stop a fight, wasn't been reading about the arrests.

And he thought the whole thing was just so absurd. A bunch of kids arrested on this vague charge of criminal responsibility, a charge that turned out to not even be real. And a few of the kids were even held in juvenile detention overnight.

IT would be a probe, one o case. And he meant going back to the ruthful d conney. Juvenile cord, going back and from judge dav in port. But immediately west was like, yes, absolutely. We'll take IT .

because I know that we were already going to get the criminal charges dismissed.

And more importantly.

I was definitely thinking about how we could see somebody for what .

happened west figure did to the police, false arrest and militias prosecution. He began by reviewing the police, is take on what happened following the arrest at hob good in an attempt address of the confusion and the outrage. The police department has conducted an initial audit. So west figured he'd start there with that report.

So, you know, click open IT up. And I didn't have high expectations for anything written by the police department, right? It's always we've conducted to the throw investigation of ourselves and have found no wrongdoing is generally how that goes. But in this particular instance, the conclusion that they did nothing wrong is based on the assertion that they were following. And let me look here and see exactly what IT says .

west reads through the report .

in front of them yeah there is the line about discussion with D A. And court regarding judicial requirement that requires juvenile suspects to be arrested and prohibits department from sighting and releasing.

It's jarney. But to west, that lines that a lot you see in tennessee, police have a few options. When IT comes to kids accused of minor offences like mister miners, depending on what happened, they can arrest a kid, or maybe just issue a city with the notification for the kid to show up in juvenile court for a hearing on another day, or they can do nothing, just send the kid home with a stern talking to the police have direction. But this line that was found referencing a judicial requirement requiring kids to be arrested in prohibiting police from citing and releasing IT, seemed to be saying the police had only one option, arrest the kid. West was stunned.

So here we've got a government police agency that pins not just the hard, good situation on this judicial policy, but every single kid, rather than counting, who is charged with the dyin' on offence, is arrested in their subject to this policy. So immediately I feel like i'm i'm on to something right, like i'm not taking crazy pills because literally everyone is getting arrested. And IT is not limited to the cases i've personally .

handled to west. The whole thing seemed and perfect for a big lawsuit.

I just remember being guilty like a kid. You know, like this sense this is flocking bonkers that this exists. And as for the .

judicial requirement, western immediately, who is behind that?

That's that's just a dave point.

right? David port, meaning judge don port.

There's no question that IT could be anybody else.

Two and a half years earlier, when west first started taking cases in radford county, he done IT because his buddies had told him there's always work in juvenile cord. At the time, he hadn't thought about why that might be, but the longer he worked there, the why seemed like a more and more important question. And now finally, he felt like he was on the verge of answering IT from cereal productions in the near the times I marble night. And this is the kids of ruda d county. Episode three, would you like to see the government.

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when west found this line about there being a judicial requirement to arrest a kid for any in on fractions, IT felt like a smoking gun. He thought he and mark finally had what they needed to expose judge dave, import the person who oversaw the core and the jail, and also slap rutheford county with a class action lawsuit. Something much larger than just a hob, good mass.

I'm being super, super, super excited about IT and just couldn't wait to talk to mark about IT.

I wasn't very enthusiastic .

about IT. Mark didn't share what is he is.

I wasn't enthusiastic at all, know, because westly would have ideas a lot when someone were not good, you know, when he bring to me and i'd look at him and i'd, he get very excited, I tried to calm down and all that self. And I thought this was another one of those.

mark felt, had a Better chance focusing on a class action lawsuit related to solitary. And fine, they they already got a favorable ruling on that issue. They should spend their time on that.

So he waved us off. But worse, he was still convinced there's gotto be something here. He figured, if mark doesn't wants to help me, i'll find someone who can.

So he spoke to a lawyer he really respected, who done some important cases involving police misconduct, a good name. Kyle mothers said, I is a good lawyer. I'll tell you so, and that's not all i'll tell you.

I mean, like, no, I I am, I am a very good lucky man. I'll just say that to you. That I would describe .

IT in juvenile .

court is .

actually when I first started being compared .

to bradlee Cooper. As you can hear, kyle has a lot of confidence and for pretty good reason. For one, he actually does look like bradlee Cooper two. He's once some bigs of a rights cases in tennessee. And even though kyle told me he found west to be, quote, very, very, very, very, very Green five varies, this case was too good to pass up.

No, I I just want IT, you know, like, I want in on that, want to be part of that, and I wanted them, you know, have a high profile case that that felt important.

Did you see money maker?

Yeah, not like massive money, but like good money.

Kao layed at a plan for west. Let's first file a lawsuit on behalf of one of the hopgood clients. Then maybe through discovery. In that case, we can find evidence that judge davin poor really is telling police to arrest all kids in a way that violate state law.

So in july two thousand and sixteen, the lawyers fatal lawsuit, and a few months later, they got their first big round of discovery, an email link to a bunch of documents, internal memos from the judge to jail, the share of surface and the police. As they started reading through the documents, they quickly found exactly what they were looking for. A series of policy memos written by dave import two law enforcement about arrests.

One memo said, even kids accused of the most minor offences, things like skipping school, smoking cigarettes or breaking curfew, should be, quote, taken into custody and transported to the juvenile detention center. There is no other option, no notice to show up in court the later date, nothing. The police had to arrest kids. Western believe. I was written down so starkly there in black and White.

I remember thinking, how stupid could you possibly be to put this kind of a thing in writing, in simple terms and then send IT out to a bunch of laender cement agencies because IT immediately to me, appeared to be illegal and in excess of her jurisdiction, you know, borderline criminal, because you're directing the enforcement officers to commit mass illegal arrests of children.

This explained so much. why? Rather ford countries police were arresting so many kids. But IT didn't explain everything we have been seeing. Remember, for over two years, west had been in court waving around the state's detention statue, complaining that his clients, we're getting jailed when they shouldn't be tennessee law was really clear and narrow about when a kid could be locked up, generally were only the most serious charges and circumstances with the mamma s. West now understood why these kids were being arrested and brought to jail for processing, but why were the country's juvenile jail staff also locking these kids up instead of sending them home? Well, west found the answer to that was also written down in black and White.

Come to find out lindu, just like roth, the policies, you know, they've got ruber stamp and .

implemented. West is referring here till the woman have imported pointed to run the jail for years. The jail had an informal system for its intake process.

If a jail staffer was ensure what to do with the kid, put them in jail or let them go, well, they could call administrators like do, or even dave in pod, who would tell the jail staff what to do with the kid. Lindu declined to talk to me for this story, but in a deposition, SHE said the problem with this informal system is that IT was exhAusting. Jail staff had just too many questions for administrators like her, especially after work hours.

So in two thousand and eight, duck or team put together a new intent policy called the filter system, quote, guideline, jail and take officers could refer to when deciding to keep a kid or release them. IT was a two column chart. On one side was one to release, on the other was when to hold I E hold a kid in jail.

But under that section, many of the reasons listed were in direct violation of actual tennessee law. For instance, this so called filter system said kids would be held any time of victim alleged an injury. Even just a scratch, a kid could get jail. Ed, the most disturbing category, though, was also the most vague. And in decades, something I had heard a lot in, dave imports courtroom according to the filter system, any kid would be held if they were considered, quote, a true threat.

That's the, that, that phrase, true threat, if deemed true threat to themselves with the community, they can detain them for anything, regardless of what the charge.

But nowhere in the jail manual did IT actually say what a truth threat was. There is no definition. IT was up to the ranking jail staff to decide whatever of that phrase meant.

So this true threat analysis was the made up sort of standard that they could use to tell a lot of kids that shouldn't be detained.

West didn't know just how many kids have been wrongly arrested over the years because the police followed that imports memos, or how many kids were wrongly jailed by lindu x filter system. So just to get a sense of how big this could be, he went into his own files to look back at all the kids .

he'd represented. So what I did was, I SAT down now as, and i'm about a third of my files ended up as these people have climbs .

from the west. Could see about a third of his older clients were either arrested or detained illegally, some both. And he was just one lawyer and have a dozen or so who regularly worked at the court.

Plus, west had only ban there for two years. The filter system had been on the books for eight. That import happened on the bench for almost twenty. How many kids were caught up in this?

Um I was sixteen yeah was when I was fourteen years old, fifteen years old, nine grade for the river today, at the first time. I A how are you seven? Oh my god.

I talked to twenty five people now, adults who told me about being arrested or locked up as kids in rough for county.

I to a high school. We went in the door to uncle magazine.

I just ran away.

I have ran away. Ice ray painted a penis on a while.

The kid name's eb, was a ninth grade when he got charged with pet that for taking important speaker from his gram on.

remember, knock at the door, I go towards the door mother and on the rest were like that in, could you has on your bag? And I asked them much, man, how long I don't be risk for? But he said for a year, for all I here.

Grace, sixteen, was at a party with some friends.

We are just sitting on the couch when all the sun, we hear a knocked at the door and we we go to the door and that was the police and they came and they arrested us. They decided was a nose complainant, was why they came. But that make all that there were alcohol bottles and and no adults present.

So the police arrested Grace and her friends for underage drinking. And there was Thomas, the fifth greater.

arrested for trying. Cy, I go to go, go. And I get out to walk up to the school, and I tried to turn around, and I run toward you. I am about going to want to go here. Remember the principle, he grab me and through me and a chair and settle me until the cops came.

So he put you in a chair and he's SAT on you. He .

literally sit on me and grab my hand until the police showed up. And then they arrested me that day.

Brand in the seven year old was horsing around with these older brothers in a vacant duplex, and they made some holes in the dry. Sometime after that, the police came to their house.

Weren't gonna take me in but since they that I had contribute to what was done to the house, they were like, well, even to learn his lesson.

Is valid as the reasons for the U. S. Were the people I spoke to usually thrown into the back of the police cruiser, often in handcuff, and taking to the same place.

So they arrested us and took us to the cuban al detergent center. Uh, the cop SHE said that, you know, in a Normal instance is he would call our parents ts and have didn't come figures up, but he wanted to teach us a lesson. So he was going to keep us in there till monday and this was the friday night.

So he cut us and gave us to ride down to the human ile attention center, which, and you know, is like a real thing, or canal, I almost like a prison. When they took us in, I was just looking at like my data is like, you're very Young, is too Young interesting.

But they still .

kept to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They still get me.

Once the jail staff decided to keep your kid, here's is what would happen next.

They start doing paperwork and take stuff, you know, like mug shot, check you for injuries, that kind of thing.

The interface of IT was you have to strip down naked in a find this weird. And was start for the languages weird as man. He has to watch you naked.

Take either extremely cold shower or extremely high shower. So you really feel like your integrity completely taking a way. Me, yeah, just come ice cold water. And just given sexually humiliated verbally by a large police officer called me to like, read my cheek talking about like my like pish drinking.

That's gross.

Yeah, tell me about.

That was scary at first, you know, they then maybe put on the low jobs food. And i'm never been a so little jon didn't even fit me. Was the shorts leave jon.

So they went to pass my elbows. Uh, H, I never experience something like that before at such a Young gay, so is like something new to me and proud, do a lot. Of crime and I was a screaming too, because of the end I felt I didn't do. No, I don't deserve to be luck though. I'm just mame my mom, dad, i'm say i'm hurt, should be trying to help me some as they lacking me up.

And that's yourself. You have toilet, shower, bench bed, nothing you did .

falls state you have to standing courters. You don't get any books. And he forced to set up all day on. And you can do push out set ups to work out. But I know that if you lay down, they come yet that you threatened like, thank you up and put you on lock down. Look down, you might remember.

was the country's term for solitary confine men. Fifteen year old ontario fraser was once put on lockdown for eight days straight.

Like i'm sitting in there just looking at myself, taking a lot of crazy, bad adults. I just wanted to I really take my life. I'm in there and i'm just cold and i'm just dress. And any guys in the 可 在 上海， 海 was a vive。

Kids told me about their struggles to get their basic needs mad. Here's Grace, the girl arrested for underage drinking.

Um while I was there, I started my period and they refused to give me any kind of taps or pass or anything. So I basically set in a bloody job seo for two full days while I was there.

Dylan was fifteen years old when he went to jail. IT was the first time he'd ever been in trouble with the law.

I had asked them for my medication. They weren't to give me that they weren't and give me retainer, which you know is one thing is that medal. But my psychiatry prescribed medication for my bipolar disorder, my depression.

And so there's just a lot of Constance maxie and and stuff instead to be in there without this medication. Now i'm manic depressive in this cell and that either got you bouncing off the walls or want to sleep all that and you can't do either. You're stuck in a box. And so it's it's a real it's almost like a four day a panic attack. I remember on the fourth day, I was starting to get really manic out of control.

At some point, the kids will go before judge dav import for their hearing, where they to find out if theyd be released or stain jail even longer.

Cycles on my feet to our ARM go into the court. I just .

remember saying the man, i'm pretty sure I had him. I guess we're not having out of there around your feet, but the shackles yeah around our feet um and our parents were there and all my friend's parents were there and I had all four of us come out there. So obviously just had been in there for two days and been crying and looking a mess and yes, I was at the bar.

Remember about the charge SHE call our parents up and like made in, like stand in, like a single file in front of her. And mike said that because of what they were doing, his parents that like this was the problem. We're rather for county I exceed three, just like we.

The one thing I remember, he said he, he said that I was a bread to myself in my society. Yes, he told me that I was a minister society. I was deemed the instance. If what he called, I think he had a gavel to and hit IT you you staying in juvenile was to take you out something about this. I wouldn't see ruth for canny again until I was in adult and out of her courtroom.

As for seven year old Brandon judd, ve imports sent him back to jail for another week.

So for me, I felt he was like a dream and never happens that IT actually happens.

With two key pieces of evidence in hand, the arrest policy in the filter system west knew they had the makings of a massive lawsuit. Just the kind of case you've been dreaming of. These policies have been the books three years now, seeing just how many of zon clients were affected. IT didn't take much imagination to pond with the scope of at all four, five, six thousand kids, maybe all of whom were now potential plaintives.

So I started calling those kids in their parents and just text him, hey, i'm westly good to tart again. Hope things are going well. Would you like to say .

the government, when a handful said yes that they were prepared to be the named plaintives for a class action? That's when things got real. Even mark could dismissed all this early on, was by now, fully on board.

like this was now a huge case. IT was a huge case.

a case that could finally hold the county responsible for its juvenile justice system and make a difference in the lives of the kids there. But let's be honest, these guys are also plenty of slaw yers, and they also saw the potential for their lives to change.

We did think that we were going to make more money than we ever made on anything because IT was such IT seems so obvious to us that this was a growth, deprivation of the civil rights, thousands of children. And how could that not be worth millions of dollars.

thirty million dollars? I think wei and I would draw around.

The guys now knew, with all their hard evidence, that they had a powerful story to tell in core about the illegal things. Rough for county and judge dav import have been doing the kids. But for years, judge dav import have been telling your own story. And that story held a different kind of power that after the brain.

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Good, good morning to you. Welcome into the action line from w gns. This morning.

We're talking about the rutherford county juvenile court system and judge dona Scott. That port is our guest this morning. Good morning. Good morning. Judged import wouldn't .

talk to me, so I wasn't able to ask directly any of my questions, which are all variations of the same question. why? Why order law enforcement to arrest children when they shouldn't? Why allow jail staff to lock them up when they shouldn't? But there was a place where, for ten years, judge dave import shared many of her views on all things, juvenile court, W, G, N S.

Radio, rather ford counties, good neighbor station. On the first tuesday of every month, SHE could be hurt chatting with host bark Walker. The third.

it's a Sunny day.

IT is, even if we got a snow coming on, that's okay. We're always open for business and sells the street course.

I've listened to seventy hours worth of these radio broadcasts, and in the process i've come to understand something of judge that important world view, a world view with a healthy dose of nostalgia for a simpler er time.

We don't have that old traditional family sit down at dinner. How is your day a .

time when society had Better value than .

we continue to go downward with our morals and our ethics back before things .

like cell phones and video games infiltrated.

kids live in every year whatever would be new with the video games. And now we've got the ones in the games. With that comes increasing aggression. And i've been here so long that I do see the increase of our violence. The main thing .

that during the year's dav import had this radio segment juvenile crime and ruthful d carney was actually on the decline, but statistics be damned, according to judge dav import things. We're getting worse every year. And he was seeing Younger and Younger kids coming into record.

We are having Younger children that need assistance, and we do not have programs. Four children, eleven, nine, eight, seven.

and we are walking off. We.

i've locked up one seven year old in thirteen years, and that was all heart break. But eight, nine year olds in an older are very common nail.

That sounds like kinder.

her part of the problem with parent judge dav imports, said many parents were simply unwilling to do what was necessary to .

keep their kids safe. You need to be monitor what they do, do not let them lock the bedroom door and not a liu in an and we some parents, they'll say, what? What do you want me to do?

Well, packed the door of the anges. Oh, well, it's a good idea. What up.

They don't need to be driving. We will disable the car. Take the car keys, don't have your keys out. What they can take.

Common sense.

We need a department of common sense.

Listening to these radio segments, IT sounded to me that judge dav imports saw herself, as part of that department of common sense, waging a battle against the decline in civility and morals, the increase in entitlement and aggression. And the detention center was a vital tool for keeping kids from going down that path.

And they know breaks the law. There can be a consequence, and they're gonna be different possible. They're going to be held for a while, and they're gonna held accountable for their actions.

And there is no more slip on the ridest. They're going to see some consequence. And i'd like to think that, that's part of IT and that we will use our facility to .

the end children. Dave import dragged about the detention center all the time, the great staff there, the great programing, how good of the art that was SHE called a dream come true, and even opened IT up for two hours.

S you have an open house .

coming up and always excited about our open house, and you can bring you your family. Uh, we do like to wait your whistle there and give you a little piece of cake.

And we have have two tours. As for the kids who are held in the jail, dave import like to refer to them as hers, as i'm seeing a lot of aggression in my nine and ten year olds. In fact, her roles to stand in parent was pretty explicit.

you know, in watching you, you act like a proud parent .

well at up and called the mother the company.

I am not very .

proud of the um because that's my job is to push and travel and and first adam to know what what's important in shape and help shape their lives and have them that's .

listeners to the radio show sometimes call in to praise judge dave imports .

were we just wanted to call in and tell, judged that in how we appreciate her, wanted to thank her .

of everything I do this very good fair you a very good job. good. This is came well, I just want to say thank you for your years of leading the Young paper of this. Can you've done a heck .

of a job what I love doing everyday?

well.

It's like in one reality, there were the lawyers, west and mark and now kao, who were saying the way you ve been running this Operation is against the law and it's pretty clear the state says exactly when to arrest in jail aid and you in the county have ignored of the state says and made up your own rules. But on the other side was judge dave and porter, who is confident in her own criteria.

And then you look to see if they are a west to themselves or rest of the community. And if there is a fine that there are rist, then we can hold them. We don't use our facility as punishment. We use that only as the tainted. If the rist of themselves or a rest pose a risk to themselves of this community, we will utilize our detention facility.

Special thank you to judge. Not us. Got that import for joining us this morning.

They stay with us. We're going to check on the weather. I'll be back.

In the spring of two thousand seventeen, nine months after west mark and kail filed their lawsuit, they got their chance to put the two versions of reality side by side in a different courtroom where a different judge presided. IT was a preliminary junction hearing where they would present all the evidence instead of a federal judge. Hey, what we know, this slaw suit is still going to take a while to resolve.

In the meantime, rather red counties illegally arresting and jAiling kids. Can you force their hand, make them stop using these policies immediately, the attorneys had uncovered a half a bit of evidence to present the memo is outlining the arrest policy, the jail's, meaning al, laying out the filter system. There is also some striking data from the county in the state that they found two from just a few years before.

IT suggested that rutherford carney have been jAiling kids at ten times the state average. They also had depositions, judge dave important deposition told the lawyers. But when SHE dished her rust, mamos IT was never her intention to take away police direction, but a share of deputy in his own deposition.

Essentially, while that house department interpreted dab imports memos, IT was why they arrested kids for even the most minor offences. It's our policy to obey court orders and not be in contempt of juvenile court, the deputy told the lawyers. Jail staffers testified that they were trained on the filter system that they could be quizzed on IT when up for a promotion or disciplined for not applying IT is written, one said. We were told, when in doubt, hold them because it's Better to hold a kid that should have been released, then release a child that should have been held. Now, inside stately halls of nash's federal courthouse, the federal judge would weigh the lawyer's evidence, and he would decide what reality they were living in, judge of imports or the laws.

Here's what surreal, like armed room waiting outside the courtroom before the hearing is to begin, and the county's lawyers are there, and a couple of the other witnesses are there. And then suddenly judge dain port walks up, and i'm like, oh my god, there he is. And he was such a different context from how I had previously encountered her. And like, he was here to have to give an accounting for the policies that he had implemented at this place. And so I was at the council table, and I only examined one of the witnesses during that hearing, partially because cow is not impressed with my deposition skills, but I watched as he examined duke again.

duke being lindum who in the jail, and put together the filter .

system as he examined duke and judge davin port. And in that really throw particular way like he wouldn't let them avoid a question.

And if they try to just talk around his questions, he would just ask IT again and nail them down to the reality of what they're been doing here, and of the reality that this two pages of statuary Mandate that I have been Carrying on about years before that they now had to explain why they weren't following IT and they're simply couldn't judged for SHE just could not give a straight answer that made any sense about why that statue wasn't being followed. In that context, every one of the room realized how absurd IT was that the statute wasn't being followed. So was just that was the inverse of the the review of the statute in the juvenile cord.

Yeah, dig in into that a little more. You'd spent years waving the statue. Yeah, telling her you're not following. And now she's on the witness stand in a federal court and she's having to explain why SHE didn't fall.

Yeah, I IT was so satisfied. I remember grinning like, I remember just feeling my cheeks from, like, the the most musical attention of raining for the entire time. He was a trying to give some cohesive explanation for the detention policy.

And at first I was like, worried is there's something we don't know, is there's some like brilliant legal strategy they're going to employ here today that we just didn't see coming. And whenever he started talking about the safety of the kids in the community as the standard, I knew that like this was IT SHE was gone down. And I remember looking at judge waverly crin shaw is a very imposing intellect and figure, and i'm like watching him observe her testimony. I remember he held his face with his hand, and like his elbow was down, he was taking notes. And then at some point he just said his pin down and put his hands and cross up in front of them and didn't take any more out and I was thinking that's a good design that, you know, he's already made up his mind as to the testimonies being presented by this .

witness up until now, had you ever contemplated what that imports motivations were?

yes. And we knew that I was night, that he was somehow pocketing money of any of this. Like we knew that was not what was happening.

So the question so remain like, why do this? You know what? What's the benefit? But the answer that question, I believe, is just power. That this bureau cracked, that he was the chief administrator over this is all kind of wrapped up in her identity.

Do you think he didn't understand the statute? Or do you think he cared more about power than the statute?

I think that IT is impossible for her not to have understood the statute because I explained IT to her dozens and dozens of occasions and I don't think she's done. I don't think she's an idiot. IT doesn't take a hundred and seventy I Q to understand how that statue applies in that context. And I don't know what exactly is in your mind. I just know that that is not a realistic possibility.

The hearing lasted only one day, and then the lawyers waight IT for a decision. If judge cronshaw rejected their request for an injunction that could kill the entire case, IT would mean the lawyers were out months of work and thousands of dollars, even more rather for conney would likely continue to jail kids at an extraordinary rate.

IT took about a month until one day, having just finished a medical appointment in sitting in his car in the parking lot, west got a notification. The judge's ruling was in. Only west couldn't read the order on his phone.

so I remember flinging the phone in the passengers seat and i'm like backing up out of the parking lot and i'm trying to use the voice style of yellow in my car to call back down. And i'm just dying to get back to my office so I can actually open the order up and sea for myself. But mark picks up and he's already know he's got his hands on the actual order. And we're basically like school children who've just got a free holiday or something. I mean.

needless to say.

theyd won. We're screaming my kid. You believe that? You know there's so fuck. I think we probably said that two or three times at least .

they're so fut judge crunch .

a found that the kids were, quote, suffering a rapper harm every day through ratheripe counties illegal detention of them. He ordered the county to stop using the filter system immediately. He also said the arrest policy, like we violated state law, but he ruled IT wasn't a constitutional issue, so IT was out of his hands.

That said, police departments in the county eventually stopped following that imports policy anyway. For us, he told me judge crunch's ruling was the best thing he'd ever read in his entire life. For so long he'd complained about judged dave import and what her core and detention center were doing to children, the arrests, the jAilings. And for so long he felt like he'd failed, failed to get anyone to see what he did. Now finally, his reality have prevailed, would have been to happening to the kids in rutherford county was wrong.

The next .

step in the lawsuit was to make the county pay for IT. That's on the last episode of the kids of ratherby county.

The kids of ruthful d county is a coporation of serial productions. The new york times republica a nash full public radio IT was reported by me mary nine, with additional reporting from kenai strong. The show is produced by danny met with additional production by Michelle not arrow editing from july snyder and janua along with Sarah blue stain and can armstrong at propulsion a and my colleague tony consolers at national fuel public radio.

Additional editing from manna bata, jo and alex, the supervising producer for serial productions is N A tuba research and fact checking by then fAiling with additional fact checking by naomi sharp sound design, music supervision and mixing by feb way. The original score for our show is from the blasting company, Susan westling is our standards at and legal review from dana Green, alaman suma and Simon progress the art for our show comes from polo delkin additional production from genel python mac Miller is the executive assistant for cereal same donny is the deputy managing editor of the new york times. Special thanks to Katie mingle, mike comedy, iran reis beyond a giver, Jordan mccarley and rob Robinson, the kids of rather ford carney is produced by serial production the near the times republic ica and nash ful public radio.