Would You Like to Sue the Government? | The Kids of Rutherford County

The Promise

Nashville Public Radio

Society & Culture

4.9 • 777 Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2023

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Wes Clark reads a telling line in a police report about how Rutherford County’s juvenile justice system really works. He and his law partner Mark Downton realize they have a massive class action on their hands.

Credits: “The Kids of Rutherford County” is a production of Serial, The New York Times, ProPublica and Nashville Public Radio. It was written and reported by Meribah Knight with additional reporting from Ken Armstrong at ProPublica.

The show was produced by Daniel Guillemette with additional production by Michelle Navarro. It was edited by Julie Snyder and Jen Guerra. Additional editing by Anita Badejo, Sarah Blustain, Tony Gonzalez, Ken Armstrong and Alex Kotlowitz. The Supervising Producer is Ndeye Thioubou; research and fact checking by Ben Phelan, with additional fact checking by Naomi Sharp. Music supervision, sound design, and mixing by Phoebe Wang. Our Standards Editor is Susan Wessling. Legal review from Dana Green and Al-Amyn Sumar.

Original score by The Blasting Company. Additional production from Jenelle Pifer. Mack Miller is the Executive Assistant for Serial. Art by Pablo Delcan. Sam Dolnick is a Deputy Managing Editor of The New York Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, good morning to you. Welcome into the action line from WGNS. This morning we're talking about the Rutherford County Juvenile Court System.
0:15.0	And Judge Donna Scott Davenport is our guest this morning. Good morning to you. Good morning, Bart.
0:22.1	Good to have you with us today. Judge Davenport wouldn't talk to me, so I wasn't able to ask her directly any of my questions,
0:28.6	which were all variations of the same question. Why? Why order law enforcement to arrest children when they shouldn't?
0:36.9	Why allow jail staff to lock them up when they shouldn't?
0:40.0	But there was a place where for 10 years, Judge Davenport shared many of her views on all things juvenile court.
0:47.6	WGNS-Rathford County's Good Neighbor Station.
0:52.4	On the first Tuesday of every month, she could be her chatting
0:55.6	with host Bart Walker III. And it's a sunny day out today. It is, even though if we got a little
1:00.8	snow coming in, that's okay. We're always open for business down on South Church Street.
1:05.2	I've listened to 70 hours' worth of these radio broadcasts. And in the process, I've come to understand something
1:12.5	of Judge Davenport's worldview,
1:14.9	a worldview with a healthy dose of nostalgia
1:17.5	for a simpler time.
1:19.0	We don't have that old traditional family,
1:22.8	sit down at dinner, how was your day.
1:25.5	A time when society had better values.
1:27.9	Then we continue to go downward with our morals and our ethics.
1:33.2	Back before things like cell phones and video games infiltrated kids' lives.
1:37.5	And every year, whatever would be new with the video games and now we've got the phones
1:41.9	and the games.
1:42.9	With that comes increasing aggression.
	...

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