0:02

In the spring of 2017, after

0:04

a preliminary injunction hearing, a federal

0:07

judge ordered Rutherford County to stop

0:09

using the filter system, their policy

0:12

for legally detaining kids.

0:14

The impact of that decision was massive.

0:17

The number of county kids sent to jail dropped

0:20

by almost 80% over the next year, which was good

0:23

for the kids of Rutherford County. And

0:25

that injunction was also good for Wes

0:27

and his legal team, who were still pursuing

0:30

a lawsuit against the county. Like

0:33

we thought, great, we've got the injunction,

0:35

and then, you know, they're going to have

0:37

to settle this thing or face a trial,

0:40

and we have all these good arguments, and we're going to

0:42

get these experts, and

0:44

we would have a really great shot at convincing

0:46

a jury of the value of these claims.

0:50

So Wes and the two other lawyers on the case,

0:52

Mark and Kyle, started gearing up

0:54

for the trial of their careers.

0:57

They did more depositions of jail and court

0:59

staff, and hired an expert witness

1:01

to testify on the trauma and impact

1:04

of jailing kids so young.

1:06

And in preparation to wow a jury, they hired

1:09

a photographer to take specialized

1:11

photos of the jail. Their plan

1:13

was to put VR headsets on jurors,

1:16

so they could feel what the kids did, being locked

1:18

up in a tiny cell. But

1:20

there's a problem with gathering all that evidence.

1:23

That's a ton of damn money. Here's Mark.

1:26

I remember getting the expert witness bills and being

1:28

like, oh my god, you know, and

1:31

so we'd get the bill, and then there'd be another one

1:33

like a month later for another $10,000 or $15,000. So

1:38

like that $15,000 was just a

1:40

kick in the balls.

1:42

While the lawyers were bleeding money, the

1:44

county was raking it in. Because

1:47

the thing is, Rutherford County's juvenile

1:49

jail wasn't just a place for its delinquent

1:52

kids. It was a place for other counties'

1:54

kids, too. As illustrated

1:56

by an infomercial the county sent out across

1:59

the state. Built

2:02

in 2008, the Rutherford County Juvenile Detention

2:04

Center is a 43,094 square foot facility that

2:09

is located in the heart of Tennessee.

2:11

It's narrated by Judge Davenport

2:14

and it's called, What Can the Rutherford County

2:16

Juvenile Detention Center Do For You? Well,

2:19

for starters, there

2:20

are 64 clean and secure

2:22

detention beds with 48 of those being

2:25

in a single occupancy room

2:28

that have a toilet, seat, water

2:30

fountain, private shower, desk

2:32

and intercom system. Over drone shots

2:35

and B-roll of kids in gray and white striped

2:37

jumpsuits, Davenport makes

2:39

her pitch to neighboring counties. Facility,

2:41

check. Great

2:43

employees, check. You

2:45

should send

2:46

your delinquents to Rutherford County's

2:48

state of the art juvenile jail.

2:50

Please contact us and let

2:52

us be your partner for the safe

2:55

custody and well-being of the detained

2:57

youth of your community.

3:08

In the year after

3:09

the county stopped using the filter system,

3:12

after the number of Rutherford County kids in

3:14

the jail plummeted, the detention

3:16

center's revenue doubled. Rutherford

3:19

County was still very much in the business

3:21

of jailing kids and business

3:24

was booming. A

3:27

federal judge had ordered the county to stop

3:29

jailing kids under the filter system, finding

3:32

it was likely unconstitutional. But

3:34

this was only a temporary injunction, not

3:37

a definitive ruling. And there seemed

3:39

to be no real fallout from it. No

3:41

consequences for any county employees,

3:44

not even a public apology. So

3:47

to the lawyers, this lawsuit felt like

3:49

the only avenue to some kind of justice

3:51

and accountability for what happened, which

3:54

meant they either had to win the case definitively

3:57

in a trial or negotiate a

3:59

large enough settlement. So the kids would get restitution.

4:03

But time is its own commodity in these kinds of

4:05

cases. And as the months and

4:08

then years went on, time worked

4:10

in the county's favor. Their

4:12

lawyers filed motions to get the case thrown

4:14

out. And the federal judge held

4:17

off on ruling on these motions, possibly

4:19

to push the two sides to settle, which

4:22

just caused more time to slip away. And

4:25

while that's going on, life happened

4:28

for Wes, Mark, and Kyle.

4:31

First, Kyle's marriage fell apart.

4:34

Then Mark and his wife moved to Canada, where

4:36

she grew up. He could still work on

4:38

the case from there, but it was a lot harder for

4:40

everyone involved. As

4:43

for Wes, he'd been sober

4:45

for over three years until... I

4:47

thought, you know, it won't hurt just to try. He

4:50

got back on OXIE. I could just do, like,

4:52

just one just today. It'll be

4:54

fine, you know. I won't mess

4:57

anything up. That relapse

5:00

actually happened earlier in the case and

5:02

lasted a few months. Mark and

5:04

Kyle didn't even find out. But

5:07

then he had a second relapse on alcohol

5:09

and prescription drugs, which was far

5:12

worse. He would end up in

5:14

an inpatient rehab for four months.

5:17

Another lawyer had to come in and help out while

5:19

Wes was gone. Then

5:21

back to Mark. His marriage

5:23

eventually ended, and so did his sobriety.

5:27

He started drinking again. The

5:32

lawyers told me the relapses didn't affect

5:34

anything. Mark and Kyle both

5:36

said there was enough of them to pass the work

5:38

around. Do

5:41

I totally believe none of this affected the case?

5:44

I'm not so sure.

5:45

But still, they were limping

5:48

to the finish line.

6:00

dedicated to the person.

6:17

In the fall of 2020, the

6:19

lawsuit rolled into its fourth year, and the

6:22

lawyers were getting increasingly concerned. They'd

6:25

sunk nearly $100,000 of their own money into

6:26

the case.

6:29

And they didn't know how much longer this whole thing

6:31

could drag on. A few more years,

6:34

maybe more. And what if in

6:36

the end they lost? Kyle,

6:39

usually so confident, said the decision to

6:41

settle was a product of fatigue.

6:44

It's cool and all to be these shoestring lawyers,

6:46

he told me. But he acknowledged that

6:48

there's a reason these kinds of cases are

6:50

often backed by a big firm with

6:52

the pockets. By

6:55

June 2021, the lawyers in the county had a deal. Here's

6:59

what they agreed to. First,

7:02

the preliminary injunction against the filter system

7:05

would become permanent. Second,

7:08

the county would pay out as much as $11

7:11

million in fees and restitution

7:14

to kids who'd been wrongfully arrested, jailed,

7:17

or both. In the

7:19

end, because of the statute of limitations,

7:22

it was determined that only about 1,200 kids

7:24

would qualify. And

7:26

while $11 million is significant,

7:29

the guys had made a big concession to get

7:31

there. The process

7:33

for paying the kids. What

7:36

they'd agreed to was a claims-made

7:38

settlement, which meant that each kid

7:41

who had an eligible claim, that kid

7:43

had to fill out a bunch of complicated paperwork

7:46

and send it in themselves. The

7:48

lawyers would help, but it was an arduous process.

7:52

For each valid claim, a kid would receive

7:54

about $1,000 for a wrongful arrest and $4,800 for an illegal jailing.

8:00

But a recent study of these types of settlements

8:03

found that only about 9% of

8:05

eligible claimants ultimately file

8:08

claims. And for this case,

8:10

the lawyers had allowed the county to keep

8:13

any money they didn't pay out. So

8:15

in order to make the county really pay the

8:17

full settlement amount, 11 million, the

8:20

lawyers were going to have to find these 1,200 kids. And

8:26

what's more, there was a hard deadline.

8:30

The lawyers had just

8:30

four months to cold call

8:33

people, cold email people, cold

8:35

doorknock people, and let them know,

8:37

hey, put in your claim,

8:40

get your money, and make the county pay

8:42

for what they did to you.

8:45

There

8:48

are snacks and drinks

8:51

and vape pods. Eyedrops?

8:54

Yeah. Might get dry.

8:56

In early October 2021, a

8:59

little less than a month before the deadline, I took

9:02

a ride with Wes and Kyle. Wes

9:04

had just gotten back from rehab. He

9:07

and Kyle were searching for people to file claims.

9:10

They had a printout of a bunch of names and addresses

9:12

they wanted to hit. These

9:14

were the high rollers of the lawsuit. Kids,

9:17

most of them now adults, with multiple

9:19

detention claims. In the

9:21

case of the law, the lawyers believed they were illegally jailed

9:24

at least three or four times, often

9:26

more. Like Wes

9:29

discovered that there was some 10

9:32

claims. There's some 10 claims,

9:34

but one person. That's the most you've

9:37

found. Yes, that's

9:38

the most of it. That's

9:40

by far the most. Ten claims

9:43

added up to $48,000.

9:45

So Wes and Kyle started referring to the

9:47

kid as their grand prize winner.

9:51

It was exciting to think about this young guy

9:54

answering the door to this news. A

9:56

sudden and unexpected windfall of

9:58

almost 50 grand. We

10:01

pulled up to the address, a rundown apartment

10:04

complex, and we decided Wes

10:06

and Kyle would go in first, then

10:08

let me know if the grand prize winner was comfortable

10:10

with me recording. All

10:13

the information they were going off of, the names

10:15

and addresses, was confidential, so

10:17

they had to be really careful with what they could share

10:20

with me. So I sat

10:22

in the backseat of Wes's black sedan,

10:25

until they came back with news.

10:26

What happened?

10:27

Someone is

10:30

there who says, I've never heard of that

10:32

person. And I've lived here since 2013. I've

10:35

lived here since 2013, so... They debated what

10:37

to do next. Should they take another crack,

10:40

or let this one go? But there's one thing left.

10:42

Ultimately, they decided to move on. Move

10:44

on, go on. To keep going down their list of plaintiffs.

10:48

As we drove off to the next address, in

10:51

search of the next kid on the list, I

10:53

stared out the window, trying to process

10:55

what just happened. That's very sad. Did $48,000

10:57

just vaporize right then and there? At

11:03

a subdivision of low-income apartments, things

11:06

didn't go any better.

11:08

Alright, so... We

11:11

ended up talking to someone who

11:14

seemed like the department manager, and

11:17

that family was evicted as me.

11:20

No forwarding information. No forwarding information.

11:22

No forwarding information.

11:23

No, I can't help you.

11:25

It started to occur to me that the

11:28

people who needed this settlement money the most,

11:30

people who were already struggling financially, who

11:33

didn't have a stable address, they were

11:35

the least likely to get what's owed to them. So

11:37

this is it. If they did this, this place or nowhere.

11:41

In the seven and a half hours we spent driving

11:43

around Rutherford County, we had a working-class

11:46

neighborhood. Well, Maribba,

11:49

what are you looking good so far? A

11:52

quiet cul-de-sac dotted with single-family

11:54

homes. Alright, well... Nobody

11:58

answered the door, you know, there's two cars.

11:59

The house was dark inside. And

12:02

a handful of bum address. No,

12:04

uh... Mark that as a bad-ass. Like a house number

12:07

that led to a shed and an empty field. There's

12:09

nothing there but trees. And

12:11

by the end of the day... Brutal. Oh,

12:14

man. What did they call it? We've gone

12:16

to 22 stops. And nothing.

12:19

I think she ain't gonna miss. Not

12:22

a single person to file a claim.

12:24

More! Sweet. Tragic.

12:28

My back of the envelope map was

12:30

that more than $430,000 was left on the table that

12:34

day. $430,000 the

12:43

kids maybe wouldn't get despite what was

12:45

done to them. In

12:50

the weeks that followed, I continued to wonder

12:53

about the grand prize winner. The

12:55

kid was $48,000 in claims. So

12:58

they kept checking with the guys, asking

13:00

if they'd gotten any leads in it. But

13:02

nothing. They couldn't find him.

13:06

He was far from the only one. Other

13:08

claimants were just as infinitable to

13:10

lawyers, no matter how many public

13:12

records databases they scribed. A

13:15

few had been killed. Some

13:18

were now in prison. That's

13:22

a shock at how few people were responding.

13:33

The lawyers didn't give up, though. They

13:35

got students at two local universities to

13:37

doorknock and make calls. They

13:39

did a media campaign, getting stories

13:42

into the local TV news, the local paper.

13:45

Kyle even went on WGNS. The

13:47

same radio station Davenport appeared on

13:49

to spread the word. Ladies

14:00

and gentlemen, we will be right back and we are

14:02

paying some bills. Finally the deadline came.

14:06

According to the lawyers, 278 kids got payouts from the

14:08

county. 278 kids.

14:14

That's 23% of the total eligible. What's

14:17

this happy with this number? It

14:19

was way above average for these kinds of settlements,

14:22

which again, is a dismal 9%. But

14:26

I have to admit, I

14:27

felt kind of deflated by the outcome.

14:30

I've reported on many lawsuits, but

14:32

nothing that I got to watch play out until the bitter

14:35

end. I had no idea about

14:37

what really came after the flashy headline

14:40

of kids win $11 million in federal

14:42

lawsuit. Because in

14:44

the end, Rutherford County paid

14:47

just a little over $5 million, less than half the

14:50

total settlement. Almost 3

14:53

million of that went to the lawyers in administrative

14:55

costs. The kids

14:58

only got $2.2 million, and

15:01

the county got to keep the rest, almost $6

15:03

million. The

15:05

county also admitted no wrongdoing.

15:10

I couldn't help thinking of the 900 or so

15:12

kids who didn't get paid, not

15:14

to mention the hundreds, maybe thousands

15:16

of others over the years, who weren't even

15:19

eligible because their arrests or detentions

15:21

fell outside the statute of limitations.

15:25

I told Wes I found the settlement a little

15:27

heartbreaking. Wes, understandably,

15:30

found me a little annoying.

15:33

Sure, in an ideal world,

15:35

there would be $100 million, and

15:38

the county would have to plow the detention

15:40

center under and do all these things they should

15:42

have done instead of building a

15:45

4-max kid prison. That's

15:48

ideal, but there was no mechanism

15:52

or possibility for that to

15:54

occur. So within the context

15:57

of what's possible here...

15:59

I feel like it's a really great

16:02

acting.

16:09

I understood Wes's perspective. At

16:11

least he got some kids paid.

16:14

But how did those kids feel about it?

16:16

Yes, Mom. I actually made $16,000 off of it.

16:21

You met Zeb in the last episode. He

16:23

was the kid arrested for taking a Bluetooth

16:25

speaker from his grandma when he was a teenager.

16:28

Zeb is now 22 years old.

16:31

What was it like to get that $16,000? Honestly,

16:36

it felt really good, but

16:39

it still $16,000 wouldn't

16:41

make up for

16:43

the traumatizing experiences

16:45

I actually felt in the juvenile system.

16:49

Zeb still remembers

16:50

his time in Jupe. The

16:52

booking process, the cold shower

16:54

in front of the guard, then into his jumpsuit

16:57

and into his cell, which was also

16:59

freezing cold. Lots of people told

17:01

me how cold the jail was. Everywhere.

17:04

Just so cold.

17:05

Zeb remembers finally

17:07

going in front of Judge Davenport,

17:09

who he says sent him back to the jail

17:11

for two more weeks. He

17:14

remembers that at some point he had

17:16

an anxiety attack. He remembers

17:18

calling for a guard that says it

17:20

took two hours for someone to finally check

17:22

on him. Nearly

17:24

a decade later is when he got his payout

17:27

from the county. He says the money

17:29

felt like an acknowledgment of what happened to him,

17:31

but not like an apology, not

17:34

a reckoning.

17:35

It kind of felt like they were just paying for the

17:37

wrongs I did, not knowing that they put a lot

17:39

of emotional abuse on people that didn't deserve

17:41

it.

17:44

Zeb knew others who got payouts too.

17:46

His brother got a claim. And also... Basically

17:50

one of my great friends got it too.

17:54

Wow, who is that? Or maybe, are you

17:56

still in touch with him? Yeah, I

17:58

mean, he's in jail now. He's just fine.

17:59

by this community corrections, but his name

18:02

was Quintarius Frazier. Wait,

18:04

I know Quintarius. Wait,

18:06

is he back in jail?

18:07

Yeah, he's here. Quintarius

18:11

Frazier, the kid from the solitary

18:13

case in episode two. Turns

18:15

out he too was paid by Rutherford County.

18:18

Just like Zeb, he got around $16,000. He's

18:23

also 22 years old now. He's

18:25

been in and out of the county jail for the last few

18:27

years, mostly for probation

18:30

violations, stemming from cases when he

18:32

was a juvenile. He's back this

18:34

time on another set of violations, drinking,

18:37

smoking weed, not letting his probation

18:40

officer search his phone. He's

18:42

been locked up for about a year.

18:48

It's hard to disentangle

18:50

what's going on with Quintarius today,

18:52

with what happened to him in the past, but

18:54

you've got to wonder. Several

18:57

of the kids I spoke to told me they felt

18:59

going to juvie, especially for such minor

19:01

stuff, marked them for the rest

19:03

of their youth. You don't fit in

19:05

with the good kids anymore. You're now

19:07

a bad kid, one said. I

19:10

really am like a bad kid now, another

19:13

told me. And so some lived

19:15

up to that, swapped one identity

19:17

for another. A number

19:19

of studies I've read say that kids who are

19:22

arrested and jailed are more likely

19:24

to re-offend, more likely to drop out

19:26

of school, and more likely to end

19:28

up in the adult system. Not

19:33

too long ago, I had lunch with Quintarius'

19:35

mother, Sharika.

19:38

I asked her where the settlement

19:39

money is now, and she told

19:41

me it's almost gone. With

19:43

no other income, Quintarius had been spending

19:46

some of it on his commissary and

19:48

phone calls from the county jail, meaning

19:50

a good chunk of his settlement money had

19:52

actually gone right back to Rutherford

19:55

County. Thank

19:57

you.

20:04

once the lawsuit wrapped up in the claims

20:07

at all been submitted the lawyers are ready

20:09

to move on mark was often

20:11

canada eventually going to rehab for

20:13

his drinking kyle a just

20:15

remarried and was looking for his next

20:17

big case and wes

20:20

he too had new lawsuits to file

20:22

other municipalities to sue he

20:25

told me cases fighting for sex offenders

20:27

rates are quote so

20:29

hot right now but

20:31

i wasn't so ready to move on from rutherford

20:34

county it's not like he got away

20:36

with something not just because

20:38

of the money but also because

20:41

the adults in charge still had their jobs

20:44

judge davenport

20:45

who oversaw juvenile justice system

20:48

that wrongfully arrested

20:49

and jailed over a thousand kids

20:52

she was about to run for another eight year term

20:55

and when due to put together

20:57

the filter system who called

20:59

the jail a well oiled machine

21:01

she was still the director they're

21:04

going or twenty first year i

21:07

wondered how much could have really

21:09

changed to fall the people running the place

21:12

where still the same more

21:14

on that after the break

21:29

you've gone deep into the kids

21:31

of rutherford county and now be want

21:33

to know even more here's one way

21:35

if you're in the nashville area you can come

21:37

here marrow been night in conversation

21:40

live with madeline baron of the in

21:42

the dark pod test though shed light

21:44

on their reporting and other work in

21:46

france systemic issues national

21:48

public radio presents this one night event

21:50

with pro publica on november twenty

21:53

ninth it's happening at the independent

21:55

nonprofit bellecourt theater in

21:57

nashville finally to the tickets

24:00

Nobody seemed to mind what they were doing.

24:06

Once we published the story, it

24:08

got a lot of attention. An

24:10

update now on one Tennessee County's

24:13

pattern of putting children in jail. According

24:15

to

24:15

a scathing ProPublica report, a Tennessee County

24:17

was brought up. Rutherford County, Tennessee, has obtained

24:19

a record...

24:20

Three police officers went to an... One

24:22

juvenile court judge in Rutherford

24:25

County, Tennessee. ...the former... The

24:29

story went national. And

24:31

then, there were meaningful demands for

24:33

change. Eleven members

24:35

of Congress wrote a letter to Attorney General

24:37

Merrick Garland, asking for the DOJ

24:40

to investigate

24:40

Rutherford County.

24:42

Tennessee's Republican governor called

24:45

for a review of Judge Davenport. And

24:47

state lawmakers introduced a resolution

24:49

to oust her. Just get her off the bench

24:52

as soon as possible.

24:54

Hi there, thank you for joining us today.

24:57

Late Friday afternoon, Representative

24:59

Johnson and I filed... In a

25:01

press conference over

25:02

Zoom, State Senator Heidi

25:04

Campbell explained why they took such

25:06

a drastic measure.

25:08

While judges are given judicial discretion

25:10

to interpret laws, they are not allowed

25:13

to make up their own laws.

25:14

The constitutional provision for removing...

25:17

This was January of 2022,

25:20

and Judge Davenport was up for re-election

25:22

that August. I had been wondering

25:24

if she still planned to run, and all my

25:26

sources were telling me she was.

25:29

But the day after that state senator's press

25:31

conference, she issued a statement

25:33

that read, In part, After

25:36

prayerful thought and talking with my family,

25:39

I have decided not to

25:40

run for re-election. I am

25:42

so proud of what this court has accomplished

25:44

in the last two decades, and how it

25:46

has positively affected the lives of young

25:49

people and families in Rutherford County.

25:51

After

25:57

more than 20 years on the bench.

27:49

Why

28:00

aren't you bringing this up?

28:02

I understood Jeff's concern. Rutherford

28:05

County had gotten knocked around pretty good in the

28:07

press, and he just wanted the whole thing

28:09

to go away. But I explained

28:11

to him that I was

28:12

curious, from his perspective, about

28:15

what happened and what could have gone differently,

28:17

you

28:18

know, so that history isn't doomed to

28:20

repeat itself. Jeff

28:22

got that, but still.

28:24

I just don't know how rehashing

28:27

all this stuff is

28:29

in the best interest of everybody in

28:32

Rutherford County to go back and say

28:35

over and over and over again that these

28:37

kids were treated unfairly. It

28:40

appears that all of them were treated unfairly.

28:42

We made a mistake. Let's

28:45

fix it and just move forward. Try

28:48

not to make those mistakes again.

28:50

Jeff said the

28:51

county commissioners, they're just a legislative

28:53

body. They approve funding, provide

28:56

resources. They don't have the knowledge

28:58

or expertise to really oversee the

29:01

operations of the justice system. That's

29:04

the point of the new oversight board, to staff

29:06

it with local citizens who hopefully have

29:08

professional skills they can bring to bear.

29:11

He said that as soon as the revelations

29:13

came out about what's been happening

29:15

in the court and the jail, the

29:17

county really has tried to make amends.

29:20

We

29:21

are not arguing that, at

29:23

least I'm not, and I don't know of any

29:25

other commissioner that would be arguing that what

29:28

happened was the right thing to do.

29:30

We think

29:34

we're just

29:35

trying to say, okay,

29:38

this happened. We're

29:42

not saying

29:44

that it was our fault that it happened or

29:46

it was anybody's fault that it happened. It

29:49

was a mistake that was made during

29:52

the judicial process. That

29:54

process, there

29:57

are mistakes made there like there are everywhere. I

30:01

mean, we weren't aware that

30:03

that was happening, and I'm

30:05

pretty sure that the juvenile detention center

30:07

was not aware that they were breaking

30:10

a law either. Maybe they should have been. I

30:12

don't know.

30:17

A longtime county official

30:19

admitting pretty clearly that the system

30:21

was a mistake, it's significant,

30:24

a meaningful starting point to some real accountability.

30:28

But it wasn't totally clear to me what

30:30

Jeff thought that mistake actually was,

30:32

or who made it. Which

30:35

brings us to what hasn't

30:37

changed in Rutherford County.

30:40

To my mind, if you're willing to admit

30:42

that this policy was a mistake and

30:44

harmful to kids, then the logical

30:47

extension is to hold the people responsible

30:49

for it. Well, responsible.

30:52

Have them face consequences for implementing

30:55

this system that went on for more than

30:57

a decade and was ultimately

30:59

the mass jailing of children.

31:02

But that has not happened.

31:04

Like I said, Judge Davenport

31:07

got to leave on her own terms, with

31:09

no formal punishment for her actions.

31:12

And Lynn Duke, the woman who implemented

31:15

and oversaw the filter system, she

31:18

still has her job. Despite

31:20

the fact that the jail she runs

31:22

has now been forced to comply with two

31:25

federal injunctions, one over

31:27

the filter system and the other over

31:29

its use of solitary confinement.

31:32

And all this has cost the county

31:33

significant money. But

31:38

ever since the lawsuits settled, county

31:41

officials have rallied around her. Rutherford

31:44

County's mayor told the local paper, Ms.

31:47

Duke is doing a fine job. And

31:50

those on the new oversight board have said they

31:52

have no plans to replace her. She

31:55

has our support, when board members said.

32:00

with Commissioner Jeff Phillips. When

32:02

I pressed him on who was responsible for

32:04

what happened, did he think it was Davenport?

32:08

Duke?

32:09

He was resolute.

32:10

You get this really clear. I

32:13

am not going to mention names, and I'm not going

32:15

to point fingers at anybody else. I'm

32:17

just not going to do that.

32:19

Why is it important for you to not do that? I've

32:21

been...

32:26

...because I think there are some

32:28

dedicated

32:30

public servants out

32:32

there

32:33

whose lives have the potential

32:36

to be ruined because of something

32:38

that might be said from

32:40

a negative perspective about

32:43

them and how they've conducted their

32:45

professional life. And I just don't

32:47

think that that's fair.

32:51

What strikes me about Jeff's response

32:54

is how he and other officials are

32:56

so willing to extend grace to Duke

32:58

and Davenport, two people

33:00

who so often refuse to extend

33:02

that same grace to the children

33:05

who came before them.

33:12

Recently, I went back to Rutherford

33:15

County to the juvenile courthouse.

33:18

It's a brutalist beige building that

33:20

sits across the street from a car dealership.

33:23

And now, a new judge is in charge.

33:26

Travis Lampley,

33:28

who sailed through the election on the Republican

33:30

ticket. When I asked him what

33:32

needs to change, he said, this

33:34

county needs a judge that will follow the statute,

33:38

which he seems to be doing.

33:40

But that doesn't mean the system is operating

33:42

totally fairly. For

33:45

one, even though a lot of kids are not being

33:47

jailed by the county anymore, there's

33:49

some pretty significant disparities in which

33:51

of them are. The year before

33:54

the filter system was stopped, the

33:56

racial disparities of the kids arrested

33:58

were pretty aligned with the rest of the state.

33:59

the country where a disproportionate

34:02

number of kids locked up were black.

34:05

But once the filter system ended,

34:07

the racial disparities shot up. Last

34:11

year, 67% of the kids locked up from Rutherford

34:14

County were black. This

34:16

isn't a place where just 17% of

34:18

the population is black. It

34:21

appears that the filter system,

34:23

with its vast overreach, had

34:26

its own twisted desegregation effect.

34:30

Beyond that, the jail continues

34:32

to

34:32

house kids from other places. More

34:35

than 40 different counties across Tennessee,

34:38

almost half the state, send their

34:40

wayward kids

34:40

to Rutherford County.

34:42

And when I took a close look at what's happening to

34:45

those kids, the out-of-county

34:47

kids, I noticed something. Reading

34:50

reports from the last few years, I

34:53

see the jail has been holding some of them for

34:55

too long on small charges. Truancy

34:59

held for two days. Unruly

35:02

held for six days. A runaway,

35:04

seven days. Another

35:06

runaway, ten days. All

35:09

of them, clear violations

35:11

of the law. But the thing

35:14

is, these are kids from other counties,

35:17

with different judges making their own decisions

35:20

on how long to jail them.

35:22

Sound familiar?

35:29

When I asked the state monitor who compiles

35:31

the reports about this, she said,

35:34

you're always going to have one somewhere. A

35:36

judge who tells you, this is my

35:38

court, and I'm just going to do what

35:40

I need to do. When

35:46

I eventually make my way into the juvenile courtroom,

35:49

I take a seat in the back, sliding

35:52

into a long wooden pew. And

35:54

I still see what I've always seen. A

35:56

room full of anxious kids and parents,

35:59

tired. looking attorneys, court

36:01

staff streaming in and out. It's

36:04

Tuesday, which means it's plea day,

36:07

so a docket full of kids taking plea deals.

36:10

Their charges were in the gamut, from

36:12

possession of marijuana to having a firearm

36:14

under age. There's a lot of domestic

36:17

assaults, kids fighting with parents,

36:19

also evading arrest, theft,

36:21

burglary.

36:24

The deals they make are often community

36:26

service or probation, and

36:28

for many, the promise of expungement,

36:31

the case wiped from their record, but

36:33

they gotta follow the program. No

36:36

more bad choices.

36:39

I noticed the courtroom's

36:40

less colorful now. Davenport

36:43

used to have lots of pictures drawn by

36:45

kids hanging on the walls. I

36:48

assumed she took them with her when she left. But

36:51

today, one picture catches

36:53

my eye, one that wasn't here before.

36:56

It's a large, almost life-size portrait

36:59

of Judge Davenport. It hangs

37:01

right next to the bench, peering

37:03

over the shoulder of the new judge,

37:06

smiling wide and proud,

37:09

the mother of Rutherford Kennedy. The

37:14

Kids of Rutherford County

37:16

is a co-production

37:28

of Serial Production in

37:30

New York Times, Pro Pabota,

37:33

and Nashville Public Radio. It was

37:35

reported by me, Maribyn Knight, with

37:37

additional reporting from Ken Armstrong.

37:40

The show was produced by Daniel Yimat,

37:43

with additional production by Michelle Navarro,

37:46

editing from Julie Snyder and Jen Guerra,

37:49

along with Sarah Blustein and Ken Armstrong

37:51

at ProPublica, and my colleague,

37:54

Tony Gonzalez, at Nashville Public

37:56

Radio. Additional editing from

37:58

Anita Baddagio and Al C

37:59

The supervising

38:02

producer for serial productions is

38:04

N. Day Chubu,

38:05

research and fact checking

38:07

by Ben Phelan with additional fact

38:10

checking Naomi Sharp, sound

38:12

design, music supervision and mixing

38:15

by Phoebe Wang. The original

38:17

score for our show is from the Blasting

38:19

Company. Susan Westling is

38:21

our standards editor and legal review

38:24

from Dana Green, Alameen Sumar

38:27

and Simone Prokus. The art

38:29

for our show comes from Pablo

38:31

Delcon. Additional

38:33

production from Janelle Peifer. Mac

38:36

Miller is the executive assistant for serial.

38:38

Sam Dolnick is the deputy managing

38:40

editor of the New York Times. Special

38:43

thanks to Kathy Sinbeck and Chris

38:45

Kleizer, Ben Holland and Pam

38:47

Holland as spotland productions. At

38:50

the New York Times, a huge thank you

38:52

to Jeffrey Miranda, Nina Lassam

38:55

and Mahima Chablani.

38:58

The kids of Rutherford County is produced

39:01

by serial productions The New York Times,

39:04

ProPublica and Nesh.