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0:17

The two attorneys, Wes Clark and

0:19

Mark Downton, were feeling pretty good. They'd

0:22

just gotten a 15-year-old kid out of solitary

0:24

confinement. And that felt like a big

0:26

victory against Judge Davenport. They'd

0:29

also decided to team up for real, form

0:31

a firm of their own called Downton Clark. It

0:34

had no real office, no business cards.

0:37

But it did have one very specific goal. The

0:39

goal was to get out. Here's Mark.

0:42

To not be juvenile court lawyers

0:44

anymore. Because it was too much time

0:47

for too little money.

0:48

And they needed the money. While

0:50

the work at juvenile court was steady, the

0:53

pay was low as far as attorneys go. Court-appointed

0:55

cases were capped at $50 an hour. Wes

0:59

had law school loans and was still living

1:01

at his mother-in-law's house. Mark

1:03

was a little more flush, thanks to a side

1:06

gig doing document review for higher-paid

1:08

lawyers. But he also had a kid

1:10

and mortgages for his house and office.

1:13

So they started a private practice that would

1:15

take civil cases, personal injury,

1:18

business disputes. They

1:20

knew it would take some time to really get established.

1:23

But they had faith. They both

1:25

remember an early case Wes brought in

1:27

from adult court that seemed promising.

1:30

It was a client of mine who, his

1:32

foot was injured during his jail

1:35

intake process. He ended

1:38

up having the foot amputated.

1:39

So we filed this lawsuit for like millions

1:42

of dollars. And it turned out

1:44

fairly quickly we learned that

1:46

like his leg was supposed to be cut off before

1:49

he ever went into jail. So

1:51

that was our first one that we thought were going to be millionaires.

1:53

Instead, they were out of pocket

1:55

about $400 for the filing fees,

1:58

plus other expenses.

1:59

And things only went downhill from there. So

2:02

there was like a slip and fall, and she

2:04

had fallen down. Oh my gosh, we

2:07

lost a lot of money on that case. And

2:09

we had the sex offenders. That was a terrible

2:11

case. Not a single one of those, that was terrible.

2:13

Not a single one of those worked out.

2:17

Most of their cases were duds right out

2:19

of the gate. And even the ones that paid out

2:22

didn't result in much. One

2:24

client had so little money, she offered to

2:26

pay Mark with a homemade painting of Lake Louise.

2:29

This is in my bathroom right now. And it's

2:31

while they're hustling to find cases outside

2:33

the juvenile court that Mark and Wes

2:36

got a call from a lawyer at the ACLU,

2:38

asking if they wanted to take on some

2:41

new clients. Some kids from a school

2:43

called Hobgood Elementary, they'd

2:45

been arrested for not stepping in to stop

2:48

a fight. Wes had been reading

2:50

about the arrests, and he thought the whole thing

2:52

was just so absurd. A bunch

2:54

of kids arrested on this vague charge

2:57

of criminal responsibility, a

2:59

charge that turned out to not even be real,

3:01

and a few of the kids were even held in juvenile

3:03

detention overnight. It

3:05

would be a pro bono case, and it meant going

3:08

back to the Rutherford County juvenile court,

3:10

going back in front of Judge Davenport. But

3:13

immediately, Wes was like, yes, absolutely,

3:16

we'll take it. Because... I

3:18

knew that we were

3:21

already going to get the criminal charges

3:23

dismissed. And more importantly... I

3:25

was definitely thinking about how

3:28

we could sue somebody for what happened.

3:31

Wes figured they'd sue the police, false

3:34

arrest, and malicious prosecution. He

3:37

began by reviewing the police's take

3:39

on what happened. Following the arrests

3:41

at Hobgood, in an attempt to address all

3:43

the confusion and the outrage, the

3:46

police department had conducted an initial

3:48

audit. So Wes figured he'd

3:51

start there with that report.

3:53

So I clicked that, opened

3:55

it up, and I didn't have high

3:58

expectations for anything. written by

4:00

the police department, right? It's always conducted

4:03

the thorough investigation of ourselves and have

4:05

found no wrongdoing is generally

4:08

how that goes. But in

4:10

this particular instance, the

4:12

conclusion that they did nothing wrong

4:15

is based on the assertion

4:17

that they were following. And let me look here

4:20

and see exactly what

4:22

it says. Wes reads through

4:24

the report in front of him. Yep, there

4:27

it is. The line

4:29

about discussion with DA

4:32

and court regarding judicial

4:34

requirement that requires

4:37

juvenile suspects to be arrested

4:40

and prohibits department

4:42

from citing and releasing.

4:44

It's jargony,

4:46

but to Wes,

4:47

that line said a lot. You

4:49

see, in Tennessee, police have a few options

4:52

when it comes to kids accused of minor offenses,

4:55

like misdemeanors. Depending on what

4:57

happened, they can arrest a kid or

4:59

maybe just issue a citation with

5:01

a notification for the kid to show up in juvenile

5:04

court for a hearing on another day.

5:06

Or

5:07

they can do nothing. Just send the

5:09

kid home with a stern talking to. The

5:12

police have discretion. But

5:15

this line that Wes found, referencing

5:18

a judicial requirement, requiring

5:20

kids to be arrested and prohibiting

5:22

police from citing and releasing,

5:25

it seemed to be saying the police had

5:28

only one option, arrest

5:30

the kid. Wes was stunned.

5:33

So here we've

5:35

got a government police

5:38

agency that pins

5:41

not just the hobgood situation

5:44

on this judicial policy, but

5:47

every single kid in Rutherford County who

5:50

is charged with a delinquent offense is

5:54

arrested and they're subject to

5:56

this policy. So immediately,

6:01

I feel like I'm I'm on to something

6:03

right like I'm not taking crazy pills

6:06

because literally everyone is

6:08

getting arrested and it is

6:10

not limited

6:13

to the cases I've personally handled. To

6:17

Wes the whole thing seemed

6:19

illegal and perfect for

6:21

a big lawsuit. I just remember

6:23

being giddy like a kid

6:26

you know like this sentence this

6:28

is fucking bonkers that this exists.

6:32

And as for the judicial requirement, Wes

6:35

knew immediately who was behind it.

6:37

That's just

6:39

Davenport. Meaning, judge

6:42

Davenport. There's no question

6:44

that it could be anybody else. Two

6:48

and a half years earlier when Wes first

6:50

started taking cases in Rutherford County

6:52

he'd done it because his buddies had told him there's

6:55

always work in juvenile court. At

6:57

the time he hadn't thought about why that might

6:59

be but the longer he worked

7:01

there the why seemed

7:04

like a more and more important question.

7:06

And now finally he felt like he

7:08

was on the verge of answering it. From

7:11

serial productions in the New York Times I'm Maribyrnite

7:15

and this is the kids of

7:16

River County.

7:18

Episode 3, would you like

7:20

to see the government?

7:46

When Wes found this line about there

7:49

being a judicial requirement to arrest

7:51

a kid for any and all infractions

7:54

it felt like a smoking gun. He

7:56

thought he and Mark finally had what they needed

7:58

to expose Judge Davenport.

7:59

the

8:00

person who oversaw the court and the

8:02

jail, and also slap Rutherford

8:05

County with a class-action lawsuit, something

8:08

much larger than just this hobgood mess.

8:10

I remember being super,

8:13

super, super excited about it and just

8:16

couldn't wait to talk to Mark

8:18

about it. I

8:19

wasn't very enthusiastic

8:22

about it.

8:24

Mark didn't share Wes's eagerness.

8:27

I wasn't enthusiastic at all, you know, because

8:29

Wesley would have ideas a lot, and

8:32

some of them were not very good, you know, and

8:34

he'd bring them to me and I'd look at them, and I'd try to...he'd

8:37

get very excited, and I'd try to calm down and all that

8:39

stuff, and I thought this was another one of those.

8:42

Mark felt they had a better chance, focusing

8:45

on a class-action lawsuit related to solitary

8:47

confinement. They'd already gotten a favorable

8:49

ruling on that issue. They should

8:51

spend their time on that. So he

8:54

waved Wes off. But Wes,

8:56

he was still convinced. There's got

8:58

to be something here. He figured,

9:01

if Mark doesn't want to help me, I'll

9:03

find someone who can.

9:05

So he spoke to a lawyer he really respected

9:08

who'd done some important cases involving police

9:10

misconduct, a guy named Kyle

9:12

Mother's head. Kyle's a good

9:14

lawyer. He'll tell you so. And

9:17

that's not all he'll tell you.

9:19

I mean, like, I, you know, I am a... I

9:22

am a very good-looking man. I'll just say that to you. That's

9:24

how I would describe it. In

9:27

juvenile court is actually when I first started being

9:29

compared to Bradley Cooper.

9:33

As you can hear, Kyle has a

9:35

lot of confidence and for pretty good

9:37

reasons. For one, he actually does

9:40

look like Bradley Cooper. And two,

9:43

he's won some big civil rights cases in Tennessee.

9:46

And even though Kyle told me he found Wes

9:48

to be, quote, very, very,

9:50

very, very, very green. Five

9:53

veris. This case was too

9:55

good to pass up. You know, I just, I

9:57

just want it. You know, like, I want in

9:59

on that.

9:59

And I wanted to be part of that and I wanted

10:02

to, you know, have a high profile

10:04

case that felt important. Did

10:06

it seem like a moneymaker? Yeah, but

10:09

not like massive money, but like good

10:11

money.

10:14

Kyle laid out a plan

10:15

for Wes.

10:16

Let's first file a lawsuit on behalf

10:19

of one of the Hopgood clients, then

10:21

maybe through discovery in that case, we

10:23

can find evidence that Judge Davenport

10:26

really is telling police to arrest all

10:28

kids in a way that violates state

10:30

law. So in July 2016, the

10:34

lawyers filed a lawsuit and a few months

10:36

later, they got their first big round of discovery,

10:39

an email link to a bunch of documents,

10:42

internal memos from the judge, the jail,

10:45

the sheriff's office and the police. As

10:47

they started reading through the documents, they

10:50

quickly found exactly what they were looking for,

10:52

a series of policy memos

10:55

written by Davenport to law enforcement

10:57

about arrests. One memo

11:00

said even kids accused of the most minor

11:02

offenses, things like skipping school,

11:05

smoking cigarettes or breaking curfew

11:08

should be quote, taken into custody

11:11

and transported to the juvenile detention

11:13

center. There was no other

11:15

option, no notice to show

11:17

up in court at a later date.

11:19

Nothing.

11:21

The police had to arrest kids. Wes

11:24

couldn't believe it was written down so starkly,

11:27

just there in black and white. I

11:30

remember thinking, how stupid

11:32

could you possibly be to put

11:35

this kind of a thing in

11:37

writing in simple terms, and

11:40

then send it out to

11:43

a bunch of law enforcement agencies because it

11:45

immediately to me appeared

11:48

to be illegal

11:50

in excess

11:53

of her jurisdiction, borderline

11:57

criminal

11:57

because you're not going

11:59

to be able to do that. directing law enforcement

12:01

officers to commit mass illegal

12:04

arrests of children.

12:06

This explained so much why

12:09

Rutherford County's police were arresting

12:11

so many kids. But it

12:13

didn't explain everything Wes had been seeing.

12:15

Remember, for over

12:17

two years Wes had been in court

12:20

waving around the state's detention statute

12:22

complaining that his clients were getting jailed

12:25

when they shouldn't be. Tennessee

12:27

law was really clear and narrow

12:29

about when a kid could be locked up, generally

12:32

for only the most serious charges and circumstances.

12:36

With the memos,

12:37

Wes now understood

12:38

why these kids were being arrested

12:40

and brought to jail for processing.

12:43

But why were the county's juvenile jail staff

12:45

also locking these kids up instead

12:47

of sending them home? Well,

12:50

Wes found the answer to that

12:52

was also written down in black and white.

12:56

They wanted to find out that Lynn Duke just like wrote the

12:58

policies, you know, they got rubber

13:00

stamped and implemented. Wes

13:02

is referring here to Lynn Duke, the

13:05

woman Davenport appointed to run the jail.

13:08

For years, the jail had an informal system

13:11

for its intake process. If

13:13

a jail staffer wasn't sure what to do with a kid,

13:16

put them in jail or let them go, well,

13:18

they could call administrators like Duke

13:21

or even Davenport who would tell

13:23

the jail staff what to do with the kid.

13:26

Lynn Duke declined to talk to me for this

13:28

story. But in a deposition,

13:30

she said the problem with this informal system

13:32

was that it was exhausting. Jail

13:35

staff had just too many questions for

13:38

administrators like her, especially

13:40

after work hours. So

13:42

in 2008, Duke and her team put together

13:44

a new intake policy called the

13:46

filter system, a quote guideline

13:49

jail intake officers could refer

13:51

to when deciding to keep a kid or

13:54

release them. It was

13:56

a two column chart

13:57

on one side was when to release.

13:59

On the other was when to hold, i.e.

14:03

hold a kid in jail. But under

14:05

that section, many of the reasons listed

14:08

were in direct violation of actual

14:10

Tennessee law. For instance,

14:13

this so-called filter system

14:15

said kids would be held any time

14:17

a victim alleged an injury, even

14:19

just a scratch, a kid could get jailed.

14:23

The most disturbing category, though, was

14:25

also the most vague, and it

14:28

echoed something less than heard a lot in Davenport's

14:30

courtroom. According to the filter

14:33

system, any kid would be held

14:35

if they were considered, quote, a

14:38

true threat.

14:40

That's the line. That phrase,

14:42

true threat,

14:44

if deemed true threat to

14:46

themselves or the community, they could detain them for

14:49

anything, regardless of what the charge

14:51

was. But nowhere in the jail's manual

14:53

did it actually say what a true threat

14:55

was. There was no definition.

14:57

It was up to the ranking jail staff

15:00

to decide whatever that phrase meant.

15:02

So this true

15:05

threat analysis was the

15:08

made-up sort of standard that they

15:10

could use to detain a

15:12

lot of kids that shouldn't be detained.

15:15

West didn't know just how many kids had been

15:17

wrongly arrested over the years because the

15:19

police followed Davenport's memos, or

15:22

how many kids were wrongly jailed by Lynn

15:24

Duke's filter system. So

15:26

just to get a sense of how big this could

15:28

be, he went into his own files

15:31

to look back at all the kids he'd represented.

15:34

So what I did was I sat

15:36

down in my office and

15:39

about a third of my files

15:42

ended up as, you know,

15:44

these people have claims.

15:46

From what West could see, about a third

15:48

of his old clients were either arrested

15:50

or detained illegally, some both.

15:53

And he was just one lawyer out

15:55

of a dozen or so who regularly worked at the

15:57

court.

15:58

Plus,

15:59

West had only... been there for two years. The

16:02

filter system had been on the books for eight.

16:04

Davenport had been on the bench for almost 20.

16:07

How many kids were caught up in

16:10

this?

16:11

Um, I was 16, yeah. It

16:14

was when I was 14 years old. 15 years

16:17

old. 9th grade. I was like 11 or 12.

16:19

Like I was 12 years old the first time I

16:21

got arrested.

16:23

How old were you? Seven.

16:25

Oh my God.

16:28

I talked to 25 people, now

16:31

adults, who told me about being arrested

16:33

or locked up as kids in Rutherford County.

16:37

I got into a farted school. We

16:39

went in a store and decided

16:42

we were gonna steal sunglasses in magazines.

16:45

I just ran away. I ran away.

16:48

I spray painted a penis on a wall.

16:52

The kid named Zeb

16:53

was in 9th grade when he got charged

16:55

with petty theft for taking a portable speaker

16:58

from his grandma. I remember sitting on

17:00

my bed and I hear a knock at the door and I kinda

17:02

go towards the door

17:03

and all of a sudden they come in

17:05

and they said, Mrs. Smotherman, you're under arrest for

17:08

theft and put your hands behind your back.

17:10

And I asked them, I said, man, how long am I gonna be

17:13

arrested for for this? He said, for a year, for all

17:15

I care.

17:18

Grace, 16, was at a

17:20

party with some friends. We were just sitting on

17:22

the couch when all of a sudden we hear a knock

17:24

at the door and we

17:26

go to the door and it was the police and

17:28

they came and they arrested

17:31

us. They said it was a noise

17:33

complaint, it was why they came. But then

17:35

they saw that there were alcohol

17:36

bottles and no

17:38

adults present. So the police arrested

17:40

Grace and her friends for underage

17:43

drinking. And

17:45

there was Thomas, the fifth grader,

17:47

arrested for truancy. I didn't want to

17:49

go to school and my mom drove me

17:51

up there like, you gotta go to school. And

17:55

I got out to walk up to the school

17:58

and I tried to turn around and run. I remember

18:01

I was crying. I was like, I don't want to go here. I

18:04

remember the principal, he

18:06

grabbed me and threw me in a chair and said

18:08

on me until the cops came.

18:10

So he put you in a chair and he sat

18:13

on you?

18:14

He literally sat on me and

18:17

grabbed my hands until

18:19

the police showed up and then

18:22

they arrested me that day.

18:27

Then

18:28

the seven-year-old was horsing around

18:30

with his older brothers in a vacant duplex

18:32

and they made some holes in the drywall. Sometime

18:35

after that, the police came to their house.

18:39

My mom said that they

18:41

weren't going to take me in,

18:44

but since they thought

18:46

I had

18:48

contributed to what was done to the

18:50

house, they were like, well, he

18:52

needs to learn his lesson.

18:58

It varied as the reasons for the

19:00

arrest were the people I spoke to

19:03

were usually thrown into the back of a police cruiser,

19:06

often in handcuffs and taken to the

19:08

same place. They

19:10

arrested

19:10

us and took us to

19:13

the juvenile detention center. The

19:18

cop, she said that in normal

19:20

instances she would call our parents

19:23

and have them come pick us up, but

19:25

she wanted to teach us a lesson. She

19:28

was going to keep us in there until Monday

19:30

and this was a Friday night.

19:34

He cuffed us and gave

19:36

us a ride down to the juvenile detention center,

19:38

which, as you know, is like

19:41

a real deal,

19:43

almost like a prison in my

19:46

opinion.

19:48

When they took us in,

19:51

they were just looking at my date of birth and stuff and

19:53

they were like, well, you're very young,

19:55

a little too young. Interesting.

20:08

Once the jail staff decided to keep a kid,

20:11

here's what would happen next. They

20:14

started doing paperwork intake stuff, you know,

20:16

they mugshot, check you for injuries,

20:18

that kind of thing. The intake of it

20:21

was you have to strip down naked in front

20:23

of this weird, I'm sorry for the language,

20:25

weird ass man. He has

20:27

to watch you naked, take

20:30

either extremely cold shower or

20:32

extremely hot shower. So you

20:34

really feel like your integrity

20:36

is completely taken away from you.

20:38

Yeah, like just ice

20:40

cold water and just getting

20:43

sexually humiliated verbally

20:46

by a large police officer telling

20:49

me to like spread my cheeks, talking

20:52

about like my like penis shrinking. That's

20:54

gross. Yeah, tell me about it.

21:02

That was scary at first, you know, they

21:04

maybe put on the little jumpsuit and I remember

21:08

being so little, the jumpsuit didn't even fit

21:10

me. It was a short sleeve jumpsuit

21:12

that went past my elbows. I

21:15

never experienced something like that before at such

21:18

a young age. So it's like something new to

21:20

me.

21:21

And I was doing

21:23

a lot of crying and stuff.

21:25

I was screaming too because I

21:28

mean, I didn't know where I was. I didn't even know

21:30

I was in jail. I felt like

21:32

I didn't do that wrong. I don't deserve to be locked up. I'm

21:35

just mad. My momma died. I'm sad.

21:37

I'm hurt.

21:38

Y'all should be trying to help me soon. Miss Al-Nagamita.

21:49

You have toilet, shower, bench,

21:51

bed, nothing. You

21:54

did fall asleep. You have to stand in corners.

21:58

You don't get any books. And you're forced to go to bed. to

22:00

sit up all day long. You

22:02

can do push-ups, sit-ups. You

22:05

can work out, but other than that, if you

22:07

lay down, they come yelling, you threaten to,

22:09

like, yank you up and then put

22:12

you on lockdown.

22:16

Lockdown, you might remember, was

22:18

the county's term for solitary confinement.

22:22

15-year-old Quinterious Frazier was

22:25

once put on lockdown for eight days

22:27

straight. Like, I'm

22:29

sitting in there just looking at myself, thinking

22:32

a lot of crazy, bad thoughts. Like,

22:36

I wanted to, like, really take my life, because

22:39

I'm in there and I'm just cold

22:41

and I'm just stressed. And then it got to the point where when

22:43

I started thinking those thoughts, I would read the Bible,

22:46

because that's all I had was a Bible.

22:51

Kids told me about their struggles to get

22:53

their basic needs met.

22:54

Here's Grace, the girl arrested

22:57

for underage drinking. While

22:59

I was there,

23:00

I started my period and

23:02

they refused to give me any kind of tampons

23:05

or pads or anything. So

23:07

I basically sat in a bloody

23:08

jumpsuit for two full

23:10

days while I was there.

23:13

Dylan was 15 years old when

23:15

he went to jail.

23:16

It was the first time he'd ever been in trouble with

23:19

the law. I had asked them for my medication.

23:21

They weren't going to give me that. They weren't going to give me my retainer, which,

23:23

you know, is one thing, because that's metal. But my

23:26

psychiatrist prescribed medication for

23:29

my bipolar disorder and my depression. And

23:32

so there's just a lot of constant

23:35

anxiety and stuff. And so to be in there without this

23:37

medication, now I'm manic depressive

23:39

in this cell. And that's

23:41

either got you bouncing off the balls or wanting

23:44

to sleep all day. And you can't do either of them. You're stuck

23:46

in a box.

23:46

And so it's a real, it's almost like a four

23:49

day panic attack.

23:52

I remember on the fourth day, I was starting to

23:55

get really manic and out of control.

24:01

At some point, the kids would go

24:03

before Judge Davenport for their hearing,

24:05

where they'd find out if they'd

24:07

be released or stay in jail

24:10

even longer.

24:11

They had us

24:14

shackles from our feet to our arms

24:17

going into court.

24:18

I just remember staying in there, and I'm

24:21

pretty sure I had hank, I guess they're not

24:23

handcuffs if they're around your feet, but

24:25

shackles.

24:25

Oh, the shackles. Yeah. We

24:28

had our feet, and our parents were there, and

24:30

all my friends' parents were there, and they had all

24:32

four of us come out there. So, obviously,

24:35

just

24:36

had been in there for two days and been crying

24:39

and looking a

24:41

mess, and

24:43

I was just embarrassed.

24:47

What do you remember about the judge?

24:50

She called our parents up

24:52

and made them stand in a

24:55

single file in front of her and said,

24:58

that because of what they were doing as parents,

25:00

that this was the problem with Rutherford County.

25:03

She treated us like we were beneath her, you know? That

25:05

there were kids like us running around

25:07

the street. She treated us like we were scum.

25:10

The one thing I remember

25:12

she said is that she said that I was a threat

25:14

to myself and my society.

25:17

Yeah, she told me that I was a menace to society.

25:19

I was deemed infamous, is

25:22

what she called me. I think she had a gavel

25:24

to it and hit it, that you're staying

25:26

in juvenile, so I was deemed to take

25:28

you out.

25:29

Something about that. I wouldn't see Rutherford County

25:32

again until I was an adult and out of her courtroom.

25:42

As for seven-year-old Brandon,

25:45

Judge Davenport sent him back to jail

25:47

for another week. For

25:50

me, I feel like it was like a dream that

25:52

never happened, but it actually happened.

26:04

With two key pieces of evidence in hand,

26:06

the arrest policy and the filter system,

26:09

Wes knew they had the makings of

26:11

a massive lawsuit,

26:12

just the kind of case he'd been dreaming of.

26:16

These policies had been in the books for

26:18

years, and now seeing just how

26:20

many of his own clients were affected,

26:22

it didn't take much imagination

26:24

to ponder the scope of it all.

26:26

Four, five, six thousand

26:29

kids maybe,

26:30

all of whom were now potential plaintiffs.

26:33

So I started calling

26:35

those kids and their parents and

26:37

just telling them, hey, I'm Wesley,

26:40

good to talk to you again, I hope things

26:42

are going well, would you like to see the

26:44

government?

26:45

When a handful said yes, that they were

26:47

prepared

26:47

to be the named plaintiffs for a class

26:50

action, that's when things got real.

26:53

Even Mark, who dismissed all this early on,

26:55

was by now fully on board. This

26:58

was now a huge case. It was a huge

27:00

case.

27:02

A case that could finally hold the county

27:04

responsible for its juvenile justice

27:06

system and make a difference

27:08

in the lives of the kids there. But

27:10

let's be honest, these guys are also

27:13

plaintiffs lawyers, and they also

27:15

saw the potential for their lives to

27:17

change. We did think that

27:19

we were going to make more money

27:21

than we'd ever made on anything, because

27:23

it was such, it seemed so obvious

27:26

to us that this was

27:28

a gross deprivation

27:31

of the civil rights of thousands of children.

27:34

And how could that not be worth millions of dollars?

27:37

$30 million, I think is what Wesley and I would throw around.

27:40

The guys now knew, with all their hard

27:42

evidence, that they had a powerful story

27:44

to tell in court about the illegal

27:46

things Rutherford County and Judge

27:48

Davenport had been doing to kids. But

27:51

for years, Judge Davenport

27:54

had been telling her own story. And

27:56

that story held a different kind

27:58

of power.

28:00

We're later

28:03

on.

28:24

Good

28:27

morning to you. Welcome into the action line

28:29

from WGNS. This morning

28:32

we're talking about the Rutherford County Juvenile

28:34

Court System. Judge Donna

28:36

Scott Davenport is our guest this

28:38

morning. Good morning to you. Good morning, Bart. Good

28:41

to have you with us today. Thank you. Judge

28:44

Davenport wouldn't talk to me, so I

28:46

wasn't able to ask her directly any of my questions,

28:49

which were all variations of the same question.

28:52

Why? Why order law

28:54

enforcement to arrest children

28:56

when they shouldn't? Why allow jail

28:58

staff to lock them up when they shouldn't? But

29:01

there was a place where for 10 years

29:03

Judge Davenport shared many of her views

29:06

on all things juvenile court.

29:08

WGNS Radio,

29:10

Rutherford County's Good Neighbor Station.

29:13

On the first Tuesday of every month, she

29:15

could be heard chatting with host

29:16

Bart Walker III. It is a

29:19

sunny day out today. It is. Even though if we got

29:21

a little snow coming in, that's okay. We're always

29:23

open for business down on South Church Street.

29:26

I've listened to 70 hours worth of these radio

29:29

broadcasts. And in the process,

29:31

I've come to understand something

29:33

of Judge Davenport's worldview. A

29:35

worldview with a healthy dose of nostalgia

29:38

for

29:38

a simpler time. We don't

29:40

have that old traditional

29:43

family sit down at dinner. How was

29:45

your day? A time when society

29:47

had better values. And we continue

29:49

to go downward with our

29:51

morals and our ethics. Back

29:54

before things like cell phones and video

29:56

games infiltrated kids' lives.

29:59

with the video games and now we've

30:02

got the phones and the games, with that

30:04

comes increasing aggression. And

30:06

I've been here so long that I do see the

30:09

increase of our violence.

30:11

The main thing that I... During the years Davenport

30:14

had this radio segment, juvenile

30:16

crime in Rutherford County was actually

30:18

on the decline.

30:20

But statistics be damned. According

30:22

to Judge Davenport, things were getting worse

30:24

every year, and she was seeing younger and

30:26

younger kids coming into her courtroom. We

30:29

are having younger children

30:31

that need assistance.

30:33

And we do not have programs

30:36

for children 11,

30:37

10, 9, 8, 7. And

30:40

we

30:41

are locking... You

30:44

have seven year olds now? I've locked up one

30:46

seven year

30:47

old in 13 years, and that was

30:49

a heartbreak.

30:50

But eight and nine year olds in

30:53

odor are very common now.

30:54

That sounds scary. I mean,

30:57

that sounds like kindergarten.

31:00

Part of the problem was parenting. Judge

31:03

Davenport said many parents were simply

31:05

unwilling to do what was necessary to

31:07

keep their kids safe. You need to be

31:11

monitoring what they do. Do

31:14

not let them lock their bedroom door and not

31:17

allow you in. And some

31:19

parents, they'll say, well, what do you want me

31:22

to do? Well, take the door off the hinges.

31:24

Oh, well, that's a good idea. Well, they

31:27

don't need to be driving. Well, disable

31:29

the car. Take the car keys. Don't

31:31

have your keys out where they can take them.

31:33

Common sense. We

31:36

need a Department of Common

31:38

Sense.

31:41

Listening to these radio segments, it sounded

31:43

to me that Judge Davenport saw

31:45

herself as part of that Department

31:48

of Common Sense, waging a battle

31:50

against the decline in civility and morals,

31:53

the increase in entitlement and aggression.

31:56

And the detention center was a vital tool

31:58

for keeping kids

31:59

going down that path. And they

32:02

know if they break the law there's going to be a consequence.

32:04

And they're going to be detained, possibly.

32:07

They're going to be held for a while. And they are going to be held

32:09

accountable for their action. And there is

32:11

no more slap on the wrist. They're

32:14

going to see some consequence.

32:16

And I'd like to think that that's

32:18

part of it and that we will

32:21

use our facility to detain you.

32:28

Davenport

32:28

bragged about the detention center

32:30

all the time. The great staff there.

32:32

The great programming. How state of the

32:35

art it was. She called it a dream

32:37

come true. And even opened it up for

32:39

tours.

32:40

You have an open house coming up

32:41

soon. Yes, you know we're always excited

32:44

about our open house. And you can bring your

32:46

family. We do

32:48

like to wet your whistle there and give you a little

32:50

piece of cake. People have two

32:52

tours. As for the kids who

32:54

are held in the jail, Davenport

32:56

liked to refer to them as hers.

32:59

As in, I'm seeing a lot of aggression

33:01

in my nine and ten year olds. In

33:04

fact, her role as a stand-in parent

33:07

was pretty explicit.

33:08

In watching you, you

33:11

act like a proud parent. Well,

33:13

I've been called the mother of the county.

33:16

I am very proud

33:18

of them because that's my job. To

33:21

push them and shove them and fuss at

33:23

them to know what's important and help

33:25

shape their lives and have them

33:28

a future. Listeners

33:29

to the radio show would sometimes

33:31

call in to praise Judge Davenport's

33:33

work. We just wanted to call in and

33:35

tell Judge Davenport how much we appreciate

33:38

her and wanted to thank her for everything

33:40

she does. You're a very good judge. You're very

33:42

fair. How you doing? Very good job. I'm

33:44

really impressed. This is Judge Campbell. I

33:47

just want to say thank you for your years of leading

33:50

the young people of this county. You've done a heck

33:52

of a job.

33:53

What I love doing every day. Well,

33:55

I know it is. It's

33:58

like in one reality, there was a lot of people who were in the county.

33:59

lawyers, Wes and Mark, and

34:02

now Kyle, who were saying, the

34:04

way you've been running this operation is against

34:07

the law. And it's pretty clear.

34:09

The state says exactly when to arrest

34:12

and jail a kid. And you in the county

34:14

have ignored what the state says and

34:17

made up your own rules. But

34:19

on the other side was Judge Davenport,

34:21

who is confident in her own criteria.

34:24

And then you look to see if they are a risk

34:26

to themselves or a risk to the

34:28

community. And if there is a finding

34:30

that they're a risk, then we

34:32

can hold them. We don't use

34:35

our facility as punishment. We use it

34:37

only as detainment if they're a risk

34:39

to themselves or a risk to our community.

34:42

If they pose a risk to themselves or

34:44

this community, we will utilize our detention

34:46

facility. Special thank you

34:49

to Judge Nala Scott Davenport for

34:51

joining us this morning.

34:56

Stay with us. We're going to check on the weather.

34:59

We'll be back.

35:12

In the spring of 2017, nine months after Wes, Mark,

35:15

and Kyle filed

35:17

their lawsuit, they

35:19

got their chance to put the two versions of

35:21

reality side by side in

35:23

a different courtroom where a different

35:25

judge presided.

35:27

It was a preliminary injunction hearing

35:29

where they would present all the evidence and say

35:31

to a federal judge,

35:33

hey, while

35:33

we know this lawsuit is still going to take

35:36

a while to resolve,

35:37

in the meantime, Rutherford County is illegally

35:39

arresting and jailing kids.

35:42

Can you force their hand?

35:44

Make them stop using these policies immediately?

35:47

The attorneys had uncovered a hefty bit of evidence

35:50

to present.

35:51

The memo is outlining the arrest policy,

35:54

the jail's manual laying out the filter system.

35:57

There was also some striking data from the county

35:59

and the state. state that they found too from

36:01

just a few years before. It

36:03

suggested that Rutherford County

36:05

had been jailing kids at 10 times

36:08

the state average.

36:10

They also had depositions.

36:12

Judge Davenport in a deposition told

36:14

the lawyers that when she'd issued her arrest

36:16

memos, it was never her intention to take

36:19

away a police discretion. But

36:21

a sheriff's deputy in his own deposition

36:23

said essentially,

36:24

well, that's how his department interpreted Davenport's

36:27

memos. It was why they arrested kids

36:29

for even the most minor offenses. It's

36:32

our policy to obey court orders and

36:34

not be in contempt of juvenile court, the

36:36

deputy told the lawyers. Jail

36:39

staffers testified that they were

36:41

trained on the filter system, that

36:43

they could be quizzed on it when up for a promotion

36:46

or disciplined for not applying it

36:48

as written. One said,

36:51

we were told when in doubt hold them,

36:53

because

36:53

it's better to hold a kid that should have been released

36:56

than release a child that should have been held.

36:59

Now

37:01

inside the stately halls of Nashville's federal

37:04

courthouse, the federal judge would

37:06

weigh the lawyer's evidence

37:08

and he would decide what reality they

37:10

were living in.

37:11

Judge Davenport or the laws.

37:14

Here's Wes. It was surreal.

37:18

Like I remember I'm waiting

37:20

outside the courtroom before the hearing

37:23

is to begin. And the

37:25

county's lawyers are there and a couple

37:27

of the other witnesses are there. And then

37:29

suddenly Judge Davenport walks

37:32

up and I'm like, oh my God,

37:35

there she is. And it was

37:37

such a different context from

37:39

how I had previously

37:42

encountered her. And like she was

37:44

here to have to give an accounting for

37:48

the policies that she

37:50

had implemented at this place. And

37:52

so I was at

37:55

the counsel table and I only examined

37:58

one of the witnesses during that. that hearing, partially

38:01

because Kyle was not impressed with my

38:04

deposition skills, but

38:06

I watched as

38:08

he examined Duke.

38:12

Again, Duke being Lynn

38:14

Duke who ran the jail and put

38:17

together the filter system. As

38:19

he examined Duke and Judge

38:21

Davenport and in

38:24

that really thorough, meticulous

38:27

way, like he wouldn't let them avoid a question

38:30

and if they tried to just talk around

38:32

his questions, he would just ask it again

38:35

and nail them down to the

38:37

reality of what

38:40

they had been doing here and of the reality

38:43

that this two pages of

38:45

statutory mandate

38:48

that I had been carrying

38:50

on about years before that, they

38:53

now had to explain why

38:56

they weren't following it and

38:59

they simply couldn't. Judge

39:01

Davenport, she just could

39:03

not give a straight answer that

39:06

made any sense about why

39:08

that statute wasn't being followed and

39:12

in that context, everyone

39:15

in the room realized how absurd it

39:17

was that the

39:19

statute wasn't being followed. It was the

39:22

inverse of the

39:25

review of the statute in the juvenile court.

39:30

Yeah, dig into that a little more. You'd spent years

39:32

waving the statute

39:35

around, telling her you're not following

39:37

it and now

39:39

she's on the witness stand in a federal

39:42

court

39:44

and she's having to explain why

39:46

she didn't follow it. Yeah, it was

39:48

so satisfying. I

39:51

remember grinning, I remember just feeling

39:53

my cheeks from the

39:56

musculature attention of me grinning for

39:59

the entire time. she was trying

40:02

to give some cohesive

40:04

explanation for the detention

40:07

policy. And at

40:09

first I was like worried, is there something we

40:11

don't know? Is there some like

40:13

brilliant legal strategy they're going to employ

40:16

here today that we just didn't see coming? And

40:20

whenever she started talking about the

40:23

safety of the kids in the community as

40:26

the standard, I knew

40:28

that like this

40:30

was it. She was going down. And

40:33

I remember looking up at Judge Waverly

40:35

Crenshaw as a very imposing

40:39

intellect and figure. And

40:42

I'm like watching him observe her

40:44

testimony. And I remember he held

40:47

his face with his hand and like his elbow

40:49

was down. He was taking notes. And

40:51

then at some point

40:53

he just set his pin down

40:55

and put his hands and crossed them in front

40:57

of him and didn't take any more

41:00

notes. And I was thinking that's

41:03

a good sign that

41:05

he's already made

41:07

up his mind as to the

41:09

testimony that's being presented by this witness.

41:13

Up until now, had you ever

41:17

contemplated what Davenport's

41:20

motivations were?

41:23

Yes.

41:24

And we knew that it

41:27

was not that she was somehow

41:29

pocketing money off of any of this. Like we

41:32

knew that was not what was happening. So

41:34

the question still remained like why

41:37

do this? What's

41:40

the benefit? But the

41:43

answer to that question I believe is just

41:45

power.

41:47

That this bureaucracy

41:51

that she was the chief

41:54

administrator over, this

41:57

was all kind of wrapped up in her identity.

42:01

Do you think she didn't understand

42:03

the statute or do you think she cared

42:06

more about power than the statute? I

42:10

think that it is impossible

42:13

for her not to have understood the statute

42:16

because I explained it to her

42:18

on dozens and dozens of occasions

42:21

and I don't think she's dumb. I don't

42:23

think she's an idiot. It doesn't

42:25

take 170 IQ

42:27

to understand how that statute applies

42:29

in that context and I don't

42:37

know what exactly is in her mind. I

42:40

just know that that is not

42:43

a realistic possibility.

42:51

The hearing lasted only one day and then

42:54

the lawyers waited for a decision. If

42:57

Judge Crenshaw rejected their request for

42:59

an injunction, that could kill the entire

43:02

case. It would mean the lawyers were

43:04

out months of work and thousands

43:06

of dollars. Even more,

43:08

Rutherford County would likely continue to jail

43:11

kids at an extraordinary rate.

43:14

It took about a month until one day

43:16

having just finished

43:17

a medical appointment and sitting in his car

43:20

in the parking lot, Wes got a notification.

43:23

The judge's ruling was in.

43:26

Only Wes couldn't read the order on his phone.

43:28

So I remember flinging the phone into the

43:31

passenger's seat and I'm like backing

43:33

up out of the parking lot and I'm trying

43:35

to use the voice dial to yell at my

43:37

car to call Mark down and

43:40

I'm just dying

43:42

to get back to my office so I can actually

43:44

open the order up and see for myself.

43:47

But Mark picks up and he's already

43:51

got his hands on the actual

43:53

order. We're basically

43:56

like school children who've

43:59

just gotten a free holiday

44:01

or something. I mean... Needless to say,

44:03

they'd won. We're screaming,

44:06

like, can you believe it? We did it, we did it, blah blah

44:08

blah, you know? They're

44:11

so fucked. I think we probably said that two

44:13

or three times at least. They

44:17

are so fucked.

44:21

Judge Crenshaw found that the kids

44:23

were, quote, suffering irreparable

44:25

harm every day through Rutherford

44:28

County's illegal detention of them. He

44:31

ordered the county to stop using the filter

44:33

system immediately. He

44:35

also said the arrest policy likely

44:38

violated state law, but he

44:40

ruled it wasn't a constitutional issue, so

44:43

it was out of his hand. That

44:45

said, police departments in the county

44:47

eventually stopped following Davenport's

44:49

policy anyway.

44:50

For Wes,

44:56

he told me Judge Crenshaw's ruling

44:58

was the best thing he'd ever read in his entire

45:01

life. For so long,

45:03

he'd complained about Judge Davenport and

45:05

what her court and detention center were

45:07

doing to children.

45:09

The arrests, the jailings, and

45:11

for so long he felt like he'd failed.

45:14

Failed to get anyone to see what he did.

45:17

Now, finally, his

45:20

reality had prevailed. What

45:22

had been happening to the kids in Rutherford County

45:25

was wrong. The

45:28

next step in the lawsuit

45:29

was to make the county pay for it. That's

45:33

in the last episode of The Kids

45:35

of Rutherford County. you

46:02

The Kids of Rutherford County

46:04

is a co-production of serial productions,

46:07

The New York Times, ProPublica

46:09

and Nashville Public Radio. It

46:11

was recorded by me, Mera Van Night,

46:14

with additional reporting from Ken Armstrong.

46:17

The show was produced by Danos DeMette

46:20

with additional production by Michelle

46:22

Navarro, editing

46:24

from Julie Snyder and Jen Guarra,

46:27

along with Sarah Blustein

46:28

and Ken Armstrong at ProPublica

46:31

and my colleague Tony Gonzalez at Nashville

46:33

Public Radio.

46:34

Additional editing from Anita Batagot

46:36

and Alex Colloweth. The

46:39

supervising producer for serial productions

46:42

is N. Day Chubu, research

46:45

and fact checking by Ben Salen, with

46:47

additional fact checking by Naomi Sharpe,

46:50

sound design, music supervision and

46:53

mixing by C.B. The

46:55

original score for our show is from

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The Blustein Company.

46:59

Susan Westling is our standards

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editor and legal review from

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Dana Green, Alameen Sumar

47:06

and Simone Proton. The

47:08

art for our show comes from Pablo

47:11

Delcon. Additional

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production from Janelle Peifer. Mac

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Miller is the executive assistant

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for serial.

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Sam Dolnick is the deputy managing

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editor

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of The New York Times.

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Special thanks to Katie Mingel, Mike

47:25

Comite, Aaron Rees, Bianca

47:28

Gaver, Jordan McCarley and

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Rob Robinson. The Kids

47:33

of Rutherford County is produced by

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Serial Productions in New York Times.

47:37

ProPublica and Nashville

47:40

Public Radio.

48:00

you