The problem goes by the name of Judge Lanny Moriaty, Precinct 1, Montgomery County, Texas.
Not content that the US jails so many of it's population, this particularly odious inhabitant of the Bench feels it appropriate to jail schoolgirls, apparently for the heinous crime of working two jobs to support her siblings, while maintaining honours classes at school and adding College Credits on top.
That'll teach (sic) her!
Picture the scene, if you will.
Parents split up and both move away. One boy is in College, the next in line, Diane Tran, 17, is left to care for a younger sister and help support her older brother. All at the same time as trying to finish her Junior year at Willis High School.
She is a good student, an honors student who is also taking extra classes for College Credit. To this burden she adds a full-time job, and to that job she adds another, part-time job.
As a consequence of suddenly finding herself as the head of the family, and the main providor, she sometimes is tired on a morning. The tiredness leads to some days, or parts of days missing from school and in April she appears before the pillock also known as Judge Moriaty. He warns her that she needs to attend school because Texas Schools need their few dollars for her daily attendance. He doesn't actually say that last bit, but I can't really imagine any other reason that this student should be made to go through such an ordeal.
Well Judges orders do not bring any extra sleep. His strictures do not feed her sister, nor do they do her homework (she still manages to do that herself).
Consequently she has to appear in Court again in May for missing some more school. Let's hear from the Judicial Intellect himself"
"If you let one run loose, what are you gonna' do with the rest of 'em?," said Judge Lanny Moriarty. "Let them go too? A little stay in the jail for one night is not a death sentence."
Run loose? Run fucking loose? Are you kidding me?
Was she partying? Doing Drugs? Drinking on street corners? Selling herself on street corners? Just what kind of "running loose" are we talking about here? Let us see if we can add a few charges:
Possession of an offensive textbook
Going equipped to earn money
Conspiracy to raise her GPA
I could go on, but Mrs Twigg is telling me to stop, because it's just not funny.
There are good people in Texas. Considerate and compassionate people who will be as horrified as I was, and I hope you are, at reading this story. As a resident of another State I do not seek to interfere, merely to offer my moral support, and my words, to their on-going struggle for social justice and fairness in their home State.
Those Texans will embrace this child, they will pay her fine and help her support her sister. They will make sure she gets to college, and hopefully ensure that this Judge is never again elected to a position where he can abuse children. And be under no illusion, this action was child-abuse and I care not that he had the judicial authority to send this girl to jail.
My message to Judge Moriaty is a simple one:
"Everyone has the right to behave like a pompous ass, but you Sir, are abusing the privilege"