The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed a lawsuit against a Michigan district judge to proceed after he punished a teenager for falling asleep in his courtroom.
The case centers on Detroit judge Kenneth King’s actions during the proceedings. The incident occurred when a teenager visited the courtroom as part of a field trip to learn more about the legal system, according to The New York Times.
A District Court judge in Detroit who ordered a teenager visiting his courtroom to be handcuffed after he caught her sleeping has temporarily been removed from hearing cases, the court’s chief judge said on Thursday.
Two days earlier, Judge Kenneth J. King scolded the 15-year-old girl, who was on a field trip with a local environmental nonprofit. He didn’t like her response and ordered her to be put in handcuffs and to change into a jail uniform, according to WXYZ-TV in Detroit, which also said the judge had asked the girl’s peers to vote on whether she should be sent to juvenile detention.
Judge King’s comments were captured on video. He told reporters that he had ordered that the girl be handcuffed and put in uniform not because she fell asleep, but rather because she had responded with “attitude” when he told her not to sleep in the courtroom.
“I wanted this to look and feel very real to her, even though there’s probably no real chance of me putting her in jail. That was my own version of ‘Scared Straight,’” Judge King told WXYZ-TV, making a reference to a 1978 documentary about teenage offenders in New Jersey.
In an interview with WXYZ-TV on Wednesday night, the girl’s mother, Latoreya Hill, said that her daughter had been tired during the field trip because the family does not have a permanent home. “How do you know my baby got a home?” Ms. Hill said, referring to the judge. “How do you know my baby got a bed — her own bed that she can sleep in? She don’t have that right now.”
On Thursday, the chief judge of the 36th District Court, William C. McConico, released a statement saying that after a “swift and thorough internal investigation,” Judge King had been temporarily removed from his docket, which is the schedule used by courts to show which cases a judge will hear. The statement did not specify for how long Judge King would be removed from the docket.
A federal appeals court stripped Detroit Judge Kenneth King of judicial immunity after he handcuffed and publicly humiliated a sleeping teenager, clearing the way for a massive civil rights lawsuit. pic.twitter.com/5lQbpTIRqR
— Robert Gouveia Esq. (@RobGouveiaEsq) August 27, 2026
King not only had the girl handcuffed, he also “berated and humiliated” her in front of her peers when she first nodded off, according to court documents. After she fell asleep for a second time, he sent her to the restroom. He then instructed a court officer to handcuff her and order her to remove her clothing and wear a jail jumpsuit. She refused to undress and was allowed to wear the jumpsuit over her clothing, at which point she was placed in a holding cell for a few hours.
The mother of the teenager filed a lawsuit against the judge. His lawyers argued that the complaint should be dismissed because his actions were protected by judicial immunity because these are “functions normally performed by a judge.”
His team also contended that King was “reprimand[ing]” the 15-year-old for “flouting the judicial authority.”
However, the lawyers representing Latoreya Till, 15-year-old’s mother, defeated the motion by demonstrating that the judge was operating outside of his official duties.
The appeals court concurred, noting that King was acting in his private capacity as a lecturer and that court proceedings had already concluded for the day and he had removed his robe.
In the complaint, Till alleges that King orchestrated the incident “for the amusement of his followers and fan base to cast [the teenager], unwittingly, in what he later described as his own episode of ‘Scared Straight.’”
It probably won’t happen, but this judge should lose his job. As it stands, he’s been demoted to presiding over traffic court. He remains on the November ballot seeking another term. Unless voters choose to remove him, the worst consequences he faces are public humiliation and a possible settlement to the family.
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