Middle school student handcuffed & arrested for being in the wrong class

New Mexico - Albuquerque police handcuffed a middle schooler and took him to juvenile jail because he went to the wrong class, though a teacher told the cop the kid had severe ADHD and forgetfulness was part of his disability, the boy - now a man - claims in court.

Paul Castaneda sued Albuquerque; Officer D. Hensley, who allegedly arrested him; Sgt. Donny Keith and former Police Chief Ray Schultz, in Bernalillo County Court.

Castaneda, then 13, claims Officer Hensley, the school resource officer, arrested him on Dec. 12, 2008 in Grant Middle School in Albuquerque.

Castaneda says he had severe attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and the school knew it. He says he was scheduled for in-school suspension that day but forgot it, or had not been told about it, so he went to his regular class.

Hensley then "sought him out" and found him in his regular class, according to the lawsuit. Castaneda says he told the cop he had forgotten to go to the ISS room, and his teacher "informed defendant Hensley that she had forgotten to remind him, and that forgetting was part of his disability."
     
Hensley searched him, then handcuffed him with zip ties and took him to juvy hall, Castaneda says. He claims the zip ties were so tight they turned his fingers blue, and that Hensley charged him with a crime: Interference with Members of Staff, Public Officials or the General Public."
     
Castaneda claims that "the City of Albuquerque in encouraging and allowing police intervention into behavioral issues has prevented plaintiff from receiving full access to education opportunities," and that disabled children "should not be handcuffed."

He seeks punitive damages for excessive force, unreasonable search and seizure, violation of disability law by "criminalizing disabilities and suspending children for manifestations of disabilities," battery, false imprisonment, negligent training, and violations of the state and federal constitutions.

Defendant Keith was in charge of training school resource officers.

Castaneda is represented by Joseph Kennedy.

Numerous lawsuits have been filed in recent years accusing school districts, particularly in the deep South, of criminalizing children, particularly black children, as young as fourth grade for schoolboy behavior, arresting them and taking them to detention, in a "school to jail pipeline" for minorities.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/01/09/64361.htm#!

Father sentenced to 6 months in jail for paying too much child support:

Houston, TX  - Clifford Hall says he's more than happy to pay child support for his 11-year-old son. "I'm his father it's my responsibility to take care of him," Hall says.

But Hall says when the amount of child support was modified no one told him. "I discovered for some reason his employer was withholding a large amount some weeks a small amount some weeks a zero amount some weeks," says Hall's attorney Tyesha Elam.

"I didn't want to go to jail basically," Hall says.

So Hall quickly paid almost 3 grand in back child support.

When Hall and his ex were in Judge Lisa Millard's court last November he owed nothing.
"Opposing counsel testified twice that he's all paid up," says Elam.

But the attorney representing the child's mother wanted Hall to pay her three grand in attorney fees and Judge Millard agreed.

Court documents also reveal Hall wasn't following the court's scheduled times to pick his son up for visitation.

Another modification Hall says he knew nothing about.

"The Judge ended up sentencing him to 6 months in jail." Elam says.

"When she said I remand you to the Harris County Jail for 180 days my mouth just dropped," says Hall.

"This entire situation is shocking to me," says community activist Quanell X. "I've never seen one like this."

"The court failed the child," he says. "The court failed Mr. Hall the system broke down."
http://www.myfoxhouston.com/story/24359680/2014/01/03/father-pays-outstanding-child-support-still-gets-jail-time

Appeals court upholds $30 booking fee for being arrested:

Chicago - Nick: So if Mr. Markadonatos had refused to pay the booking fee, would [he] have been refused booking?

Miles: No. He would have been arrested again for violating the ordinance. Another $30.

In his dissent, Judge David Frank Hamilton, an Indiana judge appointed by President Barack Obama,  calls the matter a simple case of an ordinance that is "unconstitutional on its face."

Hamilton calls the booking fee in essence a criminal fine applied to those who may not ever be convicted, or even charged, or who may not even have been lawfully arrested. The village ordinance includes no remedy for such people to obtain refunds.

He says the most difficult question in the case may be whether the defense of the booking fee is more akin to the fiction of Lewis Carroll (the Queen of Hearts' philosophy of sentence first, verdict after) or George Orwell, suggesting that to call the $30 charge a user fee is like something from the latter's Ministry of Truth in "1984," where language means the opposite of what it states, like  "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

Hamilton notes that at oral argument, Woodridge's lawyer actually suggested the $30 is justified because even the wrongly arrested person gets a benefit from being photographed and fingerprinted by the jail, an argument Hamilton called "truly Orwellian."

I don’t think rational means what Judge Stadtmueller thinks it does. And of course it isn’t “arbitrary” as they collect it from every person arrested, with or without probable cause, and whether ultimately found guilty or not. No exceptions. It doesn’t get less arbitrary, the court holds. This is sheer insanity. It’s just so flagrantly unconstitutional that there is no way to ignore this decision.http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/usca7-booking-fees.pdf#!
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/239461211.html
http://blog.simplejustice.us/2014/01/09/30-booking-fee-upheld-in-moronic-7th-circuit-opinion/#more-19624