Juvenile Court Judge Alison Nelson Floyd recently made a horribly wrong call that ultimately resulted in the death of a teenager. When the 17-year-old, that currently stands accused of killing the other teen, appeared in Judge Floyd’s courtroom the day before the shooting, his probation officer and mother supposedly begged Judge Floyd to lock the youth up for the safety of the community. Instead, Judge Floyd again released him.

One can reasonably suspect that the mother might have been in fear of her own son, the thugs that he was hanging out with, or rival gang members who knew where she and her son lived. With her son locked up perhaps she would have been able to better sleep nights. Living in fear of one’s own personal safety is no doubt pure hell.

The question reverberating around the county — and perhaps by now even the country — is why? Why didn’t Judge Floyd simply listen to the people who knew the teenager best, and do what they requested? By ignoring their pleas, she undermined the authority of both an officer of the court and a parent. But there could be more to this story than immediately meets the eye.

I know Judge Floyd, but only in passing. I certainly don’t know her well enough to read her mind, and I haven’t attempted to talk to her to ask her what her motivation was ... but I do have a clue: As the only Black judge sitting on a Juvenile Court where probably 75 percent of the defendants that appear before a judge are Black, I think she felt tremendous pressure to attempt to bring some parity and fairness to said Court — two qualities that many in the Black community would argue are sorely lacking at times.

Before anyone jumps to the conclusion that this is going to be a plea for courts (and society) to be lenient on these little gun-toting thugs, let me make one thing abundantly clear: As victims of Black-on-Black crime, most sane members of Greater Cleveland’s Black community don’t want violent and dangerous young men on the streets — period, and I wholeheartedly agree. Statistics prove that incarceration doubles the chances of young Black high school dropouts staying alive; that’s right, they are twice as likely to die on the streets as they are in prison (where they don’t have access to guns) so for their own safety, when they adopt the thug life they should be locked up until they mature a bit and come to their senses.

But the rub is, locked up for how long? Courts across the U.S. routinely hand out Draconian sentences to Black defendants, and numerous studies have highlighted the disparities between the amount of time Black and White malefactors receive. One of the more egregious cases occurred right her in Cuyahoga County a few years ago when two individuals with almost identical driving records and criminal histories, in separate incidents got drunk and drove the wrong way on a street killing an innocent person. One driver was sentenced to six years while the other was sentenced to 20 years. The difference was, one was White and one was Black. I’ll leave it to you to figure out who got the longer sentence.

In the recent case of Shaker Heights jogger Kevin McDermott, Juvenile Court judges demonstrated they care more about appeasing the media — and thereby assuring their own reelection(s) — than dispensing justice in a fair and even-handed manner to the juveniles that appear before them.

The judges that bound over the 15, 16 and 17-year-old perpetrators to adult court totally ignored due process in exchange for expediency; the media was howling for instant justice, and they obliged. Juvenile Court procedures call for competency hearings to be convened to determine if youths can be held responsible for their actions in the same manner as adults. Psychologists and mental health experts have testified repeatedly that in most cases the brains of juveniles are not developed to the point where they can be held accountable as adults ... and therefore should not be transferred over to adult court.

Of course there are exceptions... cases where juveniles are hardened to the point they deserve to be treated as adults; and this may be the case with the 17-year-old that Floyd released. He had a somewhat extensive criminal record. But the majority of the youths in the McDermott beating case were not hardened criminals, they were stupid, stupid kids who had gotten drunk and then committed a horrible crime. But for virtually all of them it was their first brush with the law, and a proper hearing no doubt would have determined their cases should have remained in Juvenile Court. The sentence there could have been “juvenile life” which means they would have had to remain in custody until they were 21. Serving five to six years would have been an appropriate sentence for their crime — if the media wasn’t howling for their blood.

Here’s the dirty little secret: During the same week that McDermott was beaten (and I certainly don’t mean to make light of his suffering, no one deserves to go through what he did) another individual was beaten in virtually the same manner, but the kids involved were not prosecuted as adults, they remained in Juvenile Court. The difference was, the victim was not White — and didn’t live in Shaker Heights.

Everyone of a fair mind will have to admit that in Common Pleas Court Lady Justice routinely peeks out from under her blindfold to see the color or wealth of the defendant standing in front of her; unfortunately, the same thing happens far too often in Juvenile Court also.

Perhaps Judge Floyd, realizing how Black kids are regularly mistreated by the justice system, has been attempting to bring some parity to the bench ... but in this case she went too far. Perhaps her years on the Court, watching her colleagues toss Black kids into the maw of the criminal justice system whenever the media demands it, caused her to attempt to become too much of an advocate for these kids. Perhaps in her attempt to bring about fairness her vision became clouded. I don’t know ... but I do know that we have yet to develop a fair and impartial system of justice in America.

However, it should not fall to one lone Black judge to attempt to bring parity and fairness to our Courts, she should have the help and cooperation of everyone involved in our so-called system of justice ... but she doesn’t. And when people fight alone they often make mistakes. Judge Floyd obviously made one that resulted in someone losing their life ... but I have to believe that her heart was in the right place, even if her head wasn’t.

From Cool Cleveland columnist Mansfield Frazier

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