- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- City Court Judge, Tarik Sugarmon, tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian, thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by Memphis City Court Judge, Tarik Sugarmon, who is running for Juvenile Court Judge right now, thanks for joining us.

- I appreciate you having me.

- Absolutely.

Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

And as you note, the election is coming up, August 4, early voting starts on July 15th.

And last week we had Dan Michael, the current Juvenile Court Judge on, you can get that interview at wkno.org.

He is running for reelection for another eight-year term.

And you ran against Dan Michael seven, eight years ago- - 2014.

- 2014.

- That's correct.

- And have been City Court Judge for... - Twenty-four years.

- Twenty-four years.

- Yeah.

- Talk about...

Some of the same questions and some of the same themes, certainly, that I talked to Judge Michael about last week.

Bill couldn't be there, but thankfully, he's here this week, but the role of, as you see it, the job you're running for, is head of Juvenile Court.

Is that your job, primarily, to punish children, young people, who've committed, you know, acts, and we're gonna be particularly focused on violent crime tonight, but we'll talk about other aspects.

Or is the job of the Juvenile Court Judge to help rehabilitate and change the paths and the lives of the children who go through Juvenile Court?

- Yes, they were... the courts were initially set up to be real rehabilitative.

It was to distinguish the handling of severe criminals, adults, from the juveniles, who need reform and rehabilitation.

But over the years through the '90s, it's transformed into a more punitive system.

Now we had three judges in Juvenile Court, over 60 years, started with Turner, and then it went to Curtis Person, and now the current incumbent.

- Yeah, and so that... you would like to go away from that punitive, if you were to win.

And what does that mean, particularly right now?

I think people are so focused on violent crime, really, you know, horrible acts, right?

What does that mean?

What are the rehabilitation possibilities for a young 16-year-old, 17-year-old, who has shot someone, who has stabbed someone, who is...

I mean, you know, all the horrors.

If we stay there for a second on those things, what are those paths of rehabilitation?

- The paths of rehabilitation start earlier, actually.

When you check a 17, 16-year-old, they've already had contact with the juvenile system, in most instances.

There is a docket called the dependency neglect docket.

Those children have been in situations where they've been in an environment that has been detrimental to their growth and development.

And so if we catch those children before they get on the, what they call the delinquent docket, we have an opportunity to really affect their lives in a positive way.

Now, those dockets generally are supposed to be heard, the cases, within a matter of weeks or a month.

In Shelby County, it takes sometimes months, up to a year, before those matters are heard.

So while that's going on, these children are languishing in the same environment that caused the petition to be filed.

If it's an emergency basis, like the allegations of abuse or sexual problems in the household, they have to have a plan that protects a child, but still, those are not heard on an expeditious basis.

And so attorneys know, who practice there, that those cases are the ones, in two or three years, are gonna be kids on the delinquent docket.

- I'm gonna bring in Bill.

- Your Honor, in talking about violent crime, so often I hear a discussion that says, "Well, this is the way you deal with people "who have allegedly committed violent acts, "this is the way you deal with people "who have allegedly committed nonviolent acts, or property crimes."

And it's almost as if one set of defendants cannot be the other; you're either violent, or you're nonviolent.

Do you think that that is the case in juvenile justice?

- I don't think it's the case in juvenile justice.

I think you get to that point by not paying attention to it early on, when you see the signs of it, that's why we need assessments to be done.

Assess a child's exposure to risk in the community.

Of course, trauma is a big issue now, and you have to have a proper trauma assessment in order to schedule a plan, or put together a plan, of rehabilitation for that child.

Currently, this Juvenile Court, even though they claim they do their trauma informed and trauma assessments, they're not actually doing them, they haven't done them.

And recently, a lady doctor, Audrey Elion, was dismissed.

She was a trauma specialist, she was dismissed because she kept asking, "Why aren't we doing the trauma assessments?"

And as a result, because of that, the plans that they're putting together for rehabilitation, lack that component and understanding of what this child has been to in the neighborhood, in order to fashion a proper plan of rehabilitation.

- So that plan is the work of a certified specialist, I take it, in that particular area?

- It should be, it should be, definitely.

- Do you think that Juvenile Court should still be under the oversight of the US Justice Department?

- I absolutely do, and I told, or asked, Dan Michael last week, or maybe a week before, he was at the University of Tennessee appearing on a panel dealing with the Juvenile Justice Board.

And I asked him that question, "Will you invite the Department of Justice back in?"

Because the community has a lack of faith in what he said about the programs, their effectiveness, and we need to find out.

Juvenile Court needs oversight.

The countywide juvenile justice consortium has also requested records and information about the effectiveness of their programs.

Now, let me put this in there, I was educated in banking and finance at Morehouse, that's what my degree was in.

By trade, I was working as a banker with NBC Bank, under Bruce Campbell and John Evans, back in the '70s, and I'm fiscally conservative.

So when I look at the effectiveness of programs, I'm looking at what are we getting on the return on our investment?

In that regard, we have programs on the books that are not giving us a return on our investment.

We don't know how much is actually being put toward those programs.

The Juvenile Court budgets is now $14 million, four million is going to programs that we have not done an assessment on.

So we don't know how those dollars are being used effectively.

We have programs in the community though, with Boys & Girls Clubs, Girls Inc., that have delivered the services, and don't cost the Juvenile Court budget anything.

- The oversight, for those not as close to it, ended in 2018.

It had gone on for a decade or so?

- About six years.

- About six years, excuse me.

- Since 2012.

- Okay, 2012 to 2018, it was ended.

And part of what it involved was an overseer who would do a report every six months.

And I went back and was looking at a couple of those, from the last few, they did say that progress had been made, that there was change and improvement in many of the areas, numerous of the areas.

- In some of the areas.

- Yes, in some of the areas.

The areas where there wasn't progress, are you... you have any sense if they've made progress since then, or is it still the status quo?

- Well, we can't trust what's coming out of the court.

That's one of the problems with our community, is that there are claims made by the current judge that just do not bear out in the facts.

I mean, we in Shelby County account for over 56% of the children that are sent to, and transferred to an adult court, to be tried and sentenced as adults.

At the same time, our crime rate has escalated, and we've not had a reduction in that.

And it is the driving force behind the issues we have.

And when Memphis was labeled, "the most dangerous city in the country", that was something that really made me take pause, and look at what is actually happening in our system.

- So what, as a Juvenile Court judge, what can you do to reduce crime?

Because, I mean, there's some points of view that it's already happened by the time they're in the criminal justice system, the juvenile justice system.

Some people, some, will say, it's kind of a lost cause at that point.

But what could you do in that seat that hasn't been done?

- As I said- - To reduce crime.

- To reduce crime?

- Yeah.

- As I said, the system needs to have programs for these kids.

Now they have the programs, but most of them are not in proximity to where the children are.

We need to have community-based programs through churches, through civic organizations, through Boys & Girls Clubs that are in the community.

The police department, I like the fact they have counselors in the police precincts.

Now they're expanding that to other precincts, but it needs to be done on a countywide basis, in order to address the problems that these children are having in the neighborhoods.

- Yeah, Bill?

- So the number of juveniles who are requested for transfer for trial as adults, and the number of juveniles who are actually transferred, has become kind of a big scorecard, in terms of just laypeople assessing what's going on in Juvenile Court.

Do you think that that should be the end-all and be-all, in terms of judging whether Juvenile Court is going in the right direction?

How many children are transferred for trial as adults?

- No, that would not be the scorecard.

You look at the children that you have kept out of the system, as well as those that have had contact with the system, that you've been able to rehabilitate.

And that is, to me, the best indicator.

Now, again, this court has not done an effective job.

The judge had mentioned that they had a reduction in the number of cases transferred last year, but we were in a pandemic, that's why they were reduced.

If you look at the year before, he said there were 46, the year before, there were 90 cases transferred.

During the period from 2016, 2019, Shelby County transferred 268 kids to be tried and sentenced as adults, in the adult court.

At the same time, Davidson County, this is a smaller population, at the same time, they only transferred 36, and they had a reduction in recidivism.

Now, the reduction in recidivism has not been an equal indicator here, ours have actually gone up.

And so those are the kind of issues where you measure the effectiveness of the programs that this court is claiming to have.

- Was Juvenile Court envisioned, across the country, when these courts came into being?

Was it envisioned for, what some see, as the prime... one of the prime jobs of the court, and that is to protect the public, just as the courts are there for adults, to protect the public.

Is that a new mission of the courts?

Should that be the court's outlook?

- Well, always, public safety is a key component, and that's why restorative justice programs are important.

You're educating the offender, his or her family, as well as members of the community, in the rehabilitative process.

And the victim has a say-so in that.

Now, the restorative programs have not been properly addressed and implemented in this court system.

And I'm looking at more buy-in from the community, and from the court, in delivering these program offenses.

The school court, the youth court, you have to come downtown for it, it needs to be in the schools.

There's no reason why every parent-teacher organization, every principal, every school counselor, should not know who the Juvenile Court judge is personally.

We need to go into the schools and have youth courts, there in the schools, where those children that are on a path towards being... having contact with the court, learn about the consequences, and understand what the process is.

- Would your goal, as Juvenile Court Judge, be to lessen contact that children have with the system?

Because the discussion, in this particular race now, and eight years ago, has always been about intercepting children before they get to the court.

- That's correct.

Contact with the court is another level of trauma.

So you're taking a child that is basically raising... or growing up in a community that's like a war zone.

And then you bring 'em into a system, that is for the most part, punitive.

That contact is another layer of trauma to that child.

So when you're doing an assessment of that child, and their ability to be rehabilitated, you have to take those factors into consideration.

Now, there was a story on about two weeks ago, I believe it was on ABC.

Memphis, demographically, has the poorest number of African-American children, demographically, than any other city in the country.

And the principal indicated children were coming to school with bed bugs in their hair.

One young man came to his principal and said, "May I eat my lunch early today?"

He said, "Why don't you eat with your friends?"

He had not eaten since Friday, and this was on a Monday.

So these are the kind of problems these children are confronted with in their communities.

Unless we're in the community, doing the services, and doing the good work of rehabilitating, and staying in contact with those children and their families, we're gonna lose another generation.

- So is there a way for the court, for Juvenile Court itself, to intervene before a formal court process?

Or when the court becomes involved, is it all over, in terms of that kind of intervention?

- By maintaining a constant contact with the children, where they're most proximate, in the schools, in the communities, you'll learn from counselors, from their friends, what's going on with 'em.

If it's a bullying situation that would escalate into something more serious, you have an opportunity to intercept and cut that contact off.

And keep them out of, both the victim and the offender, out of the system.

- That sounds very labor intensive, too.

Do you think the programs are there, as they exist today?

- We've gotta be intentional about rehabilitation.

There are programs now being used, through the Juvenile Court, on their budget, we don't know how effective they are.

Now, we already have programs in the community, as I said, Boys & Girls Club, Girls Inc., other community-based and church-based programs, in the community, existing now.

We would do good to utilize those programs, which would cut down on the cost of these programs that are on the books, that we don't know what's going on with them.

The other thing is there are resources available in Juvenile Court.

Juvenile Court probably has more appointed positions and it's top heavy, probably more than the mayor's office.

And just recently, talking to employees, there were... under the Civil Service employees, managers in appointed positions have had a 10% increase in their salaries.

This is atrocious, because if you are working under those persons, and you have not been promoted through the system that you've worked for, and you have to train the person that comes in as your manager, it demoralizes those that work under them.

So I'm looking at what the dollars are being spent on, how most effectively they're being used, and I want to direct some of those dollars into the community and programs.

- Last week, when... And again, we have about 10 minutes here, but Judge Dan Michael, who's running for reelection for Juvenile Court Judge, he was on the show last week.

So if you want to see that, you can go to wkno.org, or you can download the podcast.

One of the things he talked... We had interviewed Judge Michael five years previous to that.

It was a noticeable change.

I mean, in terms of the language he used, in his approach to assessment, talking about trauma, talking about diversion, talking about trying to minimize contact with the system.

It was a big change, in terms of what he was saying, five years later.

He talked about, you know, decades ago, when he was involved with Juvenile Court, not as judge.

You know, the schools would send some 800 to 900 kids a month to Juvenile Court for delinquency, for truancy, really small-level stuff.

That last year was reduced to 112, again, a COVID year, so maybe a little bit lower, but dramatic improvements there.

He's very supportive of the county's Youth Assessment Center, that they've opened one, and is hopeful that they'll expand that and have more.

Did you... you mentioned, I think, that you watched the interview.

Do you take that as a change in Judge Michael's approach to these issues, or it is a campaign system season, and do you just see that as empty words?

- I see it as empty words, and the community doesn't buy into it.

Because most of the initiatives that have been effective came through the school system, like the SHAPE Program.

And in terms of the detention of children, they have used a mechanism of ankle bracelet to keep children coming in this system, showing the numbers higher.

In 2017, statistics of African-American, white and Asian, or Hispanic children, were broken into demographics that way.

In 2018, they lumped the Asians and Hispanics with the whites, to show that they had been a close in that gap between disparity.

That's just sending a false message, it's not actually giving accurate numbers to what has not been going on in this court system.

- Yeah.

- And the community doesn't buy into it.

You have to have the community involved in believing that this system is working, and that the judge is doing what they can, in order to rectify some of those problems in the community.

- You mentioned earlier, recidivism, and we talked about Judge Michael, we've talked about that with lots of folks we've had on in the last year, talking about criminal justice issues.

And one thing that people bring up is, you know, that you've got these terrible incidents of... again, we're focused on juveniles right now, who have a long record of not just, you know, school truancy, or minor offenses, but of burglary, of carjacking.

And then the worst happens, right, someone gets shot, someone maybe gets killed.

And there's a point of view that I've heard, had people say to me, I'm not saying this is true, but that a lot of these kids know that their record's gonna, by-and-large, be cleared when they turn 18, and it's a free pass.

And that particularly gangs, or older adults who have, you know, malicious intent, kind of put these kids, encourage them to do that 'cause they know, by-and-large, most of what they might do, they'll get... it'll get cleared from their record when they're 18.

How do you look at that?

Is that, one, is that a real dynamic, or is that a rare exception?

And how do you approach recidivism of serious offenses among, you know, 17, 18 year olds?

- It is a dynamic, to some extent.

But again, if you catch the child early enough on, in the process, you can rehabilitate them, and you can identify where the problems are in the community.

And that's why you have to be inside the schools, inside the neighborhoods, direct these children to church-based programs, community-based programs, that can help turn them around.

Now with regard to gun crimes, those are crimes based upon state law that you have to transport.

Well, that was designed primarily for adults.

So let's say that a child is in a car as a passenger.

There's one gun in there, but four or five people in the car, they're all lumped together.

They're all charged with that gun crime, unless somebody takes responsibility for it.

So when you're talking about programs, like for instance, the Summons Review Team, SRT, and you put a deferment on top of that, you can't do it with gun crimes.

They need to have a way of distinguishing between who has actually had possession of the weapon.

- And that's dependent on a change in state law though.

- Yes.

- Which is a thing that many, many people come on and talk about, that they are a little... they are either powerless, or they are, you know, forced to do things they don't want to do.

But change, and getting laws changed in the state, can be difficult when you're Memphis.

But back to the recidivism of...

I think virtually everyone we've had on, talking about criminal justice issues, has emphasized early, early, early, what do we do early?

What do we do when they're little kids?

What would we do with reading?

What do we do when they have their first truancy?

And you know, and there's kind of, if not unanimity, there's a general agreement that that's where you can maybe stop more of this crime.

But for those kids that didn't get stopped, who have had this kind of repeat offenses, of gun crime, violent crime, what do you do?

- You have to look at where they were in the process, how they got to that point.

And see if you... there are any programs available for those serious offenses that may put them on a better track.

- Short of jail.

- Right, right, short of jail.

And in some instances...

This is one of the reasons that I took up welding.

Let me give you a for instance.

It was because I want to go into high schools, and talk to children about alternatives, if you decide not to go to college.

Give them opportunities, and you'll turn them around.

I'm not saying that all children are gonna be redeemable, and I do believe in holding children accountable.

There's a large segment that we cannot save, but those that we can, we need to make the best effort.

- Okay, Bill, five minutes.

- If you are elected Juvenile Court Judge in August, what, if any changes would you make, to the structure of the court, which currently has an elected judge, and has a system of magistrates who are appointed by the Juvenile Court Judge?

- I would make a change to the structure as it is.

The magistrates, however, should not be selected by the judge, they need to have some independence.

And I would look toward the County Commission, as they do in all of the magistrate appointments, like Circuit Court, General Sessions, to assist and vet those candidates for those major positions.

If we have any turnover in that spot, then I would ask the County Commission to assist in that selection process, and it keeps an independent.

We have due process issues in this court.

We have a defense panel that is selected by the judge.

Initially it was transferred to Luttrell, at the request of the DOJ.

- When he was mayor...

I'm sorry- - When he was- - I'm sorry.

- Mayor Mark Luttrell, when he was mayor.

- Mark Luttrell, when he was mayor.

- Okay, yeah.

- And after DOJ left, the judge asked to have it transferred back.

He then dismissed Marilyn Hobbs, who was over that panel, because he wanted to control who they hired.

The same thing with the University of Memphis, they had a clinic that came in, and the community was largely supportive of it.

After the director of the clinic made critical remarks about the conditions in which children were being detained, the judge called the dean of the law school, and asked that person to be dismissed.

After the dean refused, they went to the president, and then after he got no buy-in on the picking of the next coordinator, he took the clinic out of the court.

- Clarify real quickly what that clinic was doing.

- They were representing children, youth, on minor offenses.

- And it was legal students with professors and so on, that were doing this.

- That's correct.

- Okay.

- That's correct.

- So, would there be separate Juvenile Court judges, or would you have magistrates who are part of Juvenile Court as a whole, with the Juvenile Court judge at the top?

- The current system is effective, and I don't want anybody to get the notion I'm gonna go in and clean slate.

No, we have good magistrates there.

I imagine there will be some turnover, but the other thing I wanna do is make sure that the defense counsel, I think I said this, is independent, it should be back under the Mayor's Office.

But also these attorneys on the defense panel are being compensated through the state, but they're not given the resources like counseling, like investigative services, like the public defender would have.

I think those services should be provided to those defense counsel attorneys through the public defender's office.

- So, possibly a formula like you have in the adult system, between what funding is for the prosecution, and what funding is for public defenders.

- That's right.

- Or for appointed attorneys.

- It's the same resources, because what you have, is if you have co-defendants, one gets the public defender, because of the conflict with the public defender's office, they're assigned a defense counsel, who does not have the same resources.

They don't have, again, investigators, they don't have counselors they can work with them.

So either the family, who's already indigent, has to come out of their pocket, or the attorney has to go in his or her pocket.

We need to change that process.

- Just a minute-and-a-half left here.

You are currently City Court Judge.

For people not familiar, 'cause there's so many different court levels, what is your role right now?

- We handle traffic matters, for the most part, city ordinance enforcement.

As I mentioned before, I do the vicious dog cases in some to some extent.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But it's primarily traffic enforcement.

And in that regard, it's not lost on anyone, how atrocious the driving has gotten, especially with juvenile offenders.

- Yeah.

- Those are the kind of things, through this Juvenile Court system, we also need to address.

We need to require additional driver training courses.

I think the state has a role to play in this.

We have these paper tags, I don't know if they're being printed, but when you see a paper tag, you know it's somebody that one, probably does not have insurance, may not have a driver's license, we see that constantly in our court.

So in in the Juvenile Court, we need to make sure those offenders are held accountable.

- And so in your court right now, I had not thought about this or I would've come to it sooner.

Again, there is people very concerned about traffic, and driving, and reckless driving.

What can you do within that court to stop someone from repeat offending of speeding, tickets, driving without a license, driving without insurance?

I mean, what can you really do?

- Within the court, if it's a juvenile, we could hold the family accountable.

- Yeah.

- By maintaining insurance, by suspension of licenses, in the event that the child continues to offend.

And if the child doesn't, we can put 'em in a course where they learn driving safety.

- Yeah.

- Extended classes and extensive classes.

- All right, I have so many more questions, I wish we'd come to the traffic thing sooner, but Tarik Sugarmon, thanks for being here.

- And I apologize, the pollen has gotten me- - No, no, I know, I understand, we've all got it.

Thank you for being here, thank you, Bill.

Again, early voting starts July 15th.

The election day is August 4th.

We had Judge Dan Michael, who's referenced here, obviously, was on the show last week.

You can get that and all our past shows at wkno.org, or you can go to The Daily Memphian site to get the video, or there's a podcast version of the show.

And you can get that wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks, and we'll see you next week.

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