DETROIT (WWJ) — A Detroit teenager and her mother have filed a lawsuit accusing 36th District Court Judge Kenneth King of violating her constitutional rights and causing her severe emotional pain and suffering.
The lawsuit, filed by Fieger Law, alleges King ordered 15-year-old Eva Goodman to be handcuffed, arrested and placed in jail garb after she fell asleep in his courtroom during a field trip on Tuesday, Aug. 13.
Last week King was removed from the bench to undergo training after the allegations came to light. He has also been removed from two classes he was scheduled to teach at Wayne State University this fall.
"It's been pretty devastating. Eva doesn't want to come outside, she doesn't want to be involved with no one else but family relatives. It's hard for her to sleep at night," the girl's mother, Latoreya Till, said at a press conference Wednesday.
The lawsuit claims the girl was imprisoned and unwillingly held through a "fake trial" involving threats of continued youth home detention. Her attorneys say she suffered severe emotional pain and suffering, mental anguish, severe emotional distress, humiliation and mortification.
The ordeal was streamed on the judge's YouTube channel. The lawsuit says the incident took place after he briefly presided over a homicide trial with the students in the gallery and he had since switched to the role of being "a teacher."
The suit alleges King was "acting under color of law by representing that he had the authority as a state district judge to punish" the girl, when he did not. It claims he "publicly punished and demeaned her by broadcasting his own rendition of 'Scared Straight,'" a reality show set inside a prison.
The lawsuit says the difference between King's version and the reality series is that "the participants of the series consented to participate in the real 'Scared Straight.'"
The lawsuit also alleges King made the girl "an unwitting actor in his improv version of 'The Star Chamber.'"
Till said last week her daughter was tired because they do not have a permanent home. The lawsuit says the girl did not know about the trip with a vocational program run by a local nonprofit organization that she had been working with this summer until that morning.
The lawsuit claims the girl was "not interested in the practice of law and instead aspired to be a cardio-thoracic surgeon" and otherwise would not have attended the trip or tried to work with a different crew that day.
"An otherwise shy, polite and courteous Ms. ELG, who was not interested in the practice of law and who had had a rough night's sleep, unintentionally expressed her disinterest in the proceedings by nodding off after being exposed to a court hearing that forced her to relive a traumatic event, causing her to shut down," the lawsuit says.
