Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/kentucky/)
Parents in Boone County, Kentucky, were outraged this past January when a ninth grader who had been suspended a year earlier for threatening violence against his fellow students returned to class as soon as his punishment time was up.
“The kid had a ‘kill list’ which named students — friends he was going to kill,” said Republican state Rep. Steve Rawlings.
As protests erupt in cities across the nation following George Floyd’s death in police custody, youth-serving agencies appear to have a similar view of their role. Their job is to support young people, provide safe space for them and, in many cases, bring their voices and experiences into the public realm to solve public problems.
I did “something stupid,” said Kentucky high school student N.C., admitting to his assistant principal and the school’s sheriff’s deputy that he gave two of his prescription pain pills to another student. He was not read his rights, and the officer subsequently charged him with illegally dispensing a controlled substance. N.C.’s attorney is arguing that the student should have been informed of his rights to leave, stay quiet or call an attorney. N.C. was “in custody” when he sat in an office with Nelson County High School Assistant Principal Mike Glass and School Resource Officer Deputy Steve Campbell, talking about his empty prescription medicine bottle, argued Robert Strong, assistant public advocate. So the adults erred by failing the familiar Miranda warning: “You have the right to remain silent …”
“Given that the officer testified that the assistant principal was aware that N.C. had given some pills away before they interrogated him, the interrogation was a criminal investigation,” Strong wrote in his brief to the Kentucky Supreme Court. N.C. was not read his rights, so, Strong argued, the student’s statements to the two men should have been inadmissible in the criminal case against him. N.C., whose age is not given, was sentenced to 45 days in adult jail, on hold pending the outcome of his appeal.
The Lexington Courier-Journal reported in late November that 18- year- old Garrett Dye was sentenced to 50 years for the murder of his adopted sister, Amy Dye, who was 9- years-old. Amy was removed from her mother in Washington state at the age of three. For two years she was shuffled between foster homes and relatives. Finally, at the age of five, her great aunt petitioned to adopt her, a seemingly happy ending to her ordeal. She came to Kentucky first as a foster child, into a home approved by state authorities, and then as an adopted daughter. The aunt received $550.60 a month to support the adoption.