Detroit judge handcuffs teenager who fell asleep during courtroom excursion
The teenager was on an outing with the environmental nonprofit Greening of Detroit when Judge Kenneth King expressed his displeasure that she had fallen asleep twice in his courtroom.
Fox – 2 Detroit
Wayne State University will no longer employ a Detroit judge who forced a young girl to put on prison garb, handcuff her and beg for mercy after she fell asleep in his courtroom.
For 36th District Judge Kenneth King, this is the latest domino effect. On Thursday, Chief Judge William McConico temporarily suspended King from office and ordered him to undergo further training because he failed to maintain the court’s standards.
King worked as an adjunct professor at the university in Detroit. But Wayne State University spokesman Bill Roose said Friday afternoon that this had changed following King’s recent behavior and his subsequent removal from the court record.
“In light of the temporary suspension of Judge Kenneth King by the 36th District Court, Wayne State University has reassigned two fall 2024 courses to other instructors,” Roose said in a statement.
“As a contractual part-time faculty member, Judge King has never had an ongoing teaching obligation. Since 2022, he has taught a total of five course sections at Wayne State’s Law School and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.”
King’s profile page on the university’s website was removed Friday morning. An archived version of the page includes a detailed biography and criminal procedure courses he has previously taught. He was scheduled to teach two courses this fall: “The Court Process” and “Criminal Procedure: Investigations.”
In a financial disclosure form previously obtained by the Free Press, King reported receiving $5,415 for his role as an adjunct professor at Wayne State University in 2022. He also filed a comparable disclosure for 2020 showing he received nearly $10,000 for his work as an adjunct professor at Ferris State University in Big Rapids.
On Tuesday, a group of teens working with a local nonprofit visited King’s courtroom as part of a field trip. One of them, 15-year-old Eva Goodman, fell asleep while King was lecturing. King yelled at her to wake up, according to a video of the hearing. But after she fell asleep again minutes later, King had her taken into custody.
Goodman’s mother, Latoreya Till, told the Free Press that her daughter was asked to put on prison garb, but she refused to remove certain items of clothing. She was held in handcuffs in a separate room for about two hours before being taken back to King’s courtroom, where he admonished her and threatened to send her to jail or juvenile detention.
He finally decided to let her go, but first asked her colleagues by a show of hands whether he should show leniency; most voted to let her go.
Till called King a tyrant and said her daughter was probably tired because the family currently has nowhere to live. She has since hired a lawyer and set up a GoFundMe page.
On Wednesday, King told the Free Press he acted appropriately and that people were blowing the situation out of proportion. On Thursday morning, before he was removed from office, he told supporters in a chat on his YouTube channel that he had received death threats. McConico’s office confirmed they had deployed additional security, and a Detroit police spokesperson said they were investigating the case.
It is unclear how long King will not try cases.
Reach Dave Boucher at [email protected] and on X, formerly Twitter, @Dave_Boucher1.
