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The Internet is abuzz this morning about Michigan Circuit Judge Lisa Gorcyca, who berated three juvenile siblings in her court before sending them to juvenile detention. Their crime? They didn’t want to have lunch with their father. From the Detroit Free Press:
Three Oakland County children who refused to go to lunch with their father, as part of a bitter divorce and custody battle between their parents, are spending their summer in the county’s juvenile detention center, according to court records.“We’ll review it when school starts, and you may be going to school there,” Oakland County Family Court Judge Lisa Gorcyca told the children during a June 24 hearing, referring to the center in Waterford Township called Children’s Village, where authorities house as many as 200 juvenile offenders.Gorcyca, who blamed their mother for poisoning the children’s attitude toward their father, ordered the children be sent to the center for defying her orders — while in court — that they go to lunch with their father.The children — ranging in age from 9 to 15 — were deemed in contempt of court last month by Gorcyca for disobeying her orders to “have a healthy relationship with your father.”
We’re already well into the absurd here. Even assuming the judge is correct that the mother is turning the kids against their father, why in the world would a judge punish the kids for that? Keep in mind, these kids aren’t accused of any crime. They’re accused of defying a judge who ordered them to have a relationship with their father. And they say this is because their father is abusive (which, again, is an accusation we have no way of knowing is true or false).
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