Kids Jailed for Refusing Lunch with Father?
We don’t usually directly address issues that are current ‘pop culture’ items, because that’s often a trap — there’s really no good that can come of getting embroiled in it. But in this particular case, this oh-so-viral Tsimhoni case of the judge who found a trio of children to be in contempt of court and sentenced them to time in jail…something needs to be pointed out.
If you’re not familiar with the situation, the relevant facts are these:
- The children’s parents had an incredibly painful, messy, and downright violent divorce.
- The judge earnestly believed that the children had been literally brainwashed by their mother into hating their father passionately.
- The judge attempted to order the children to have a healthy relationship with their father, and to commence that effort by having a “friendly lunch” with him.
- The children refused the court order, putting them in contempt of court.
- The judge handed out a technically-correct sentence for contempt of court: the children would be imprisoned in a juvenile facility until their 18th birthdays.
The two basic “camps” of public opinion seem to boil down to the “everything the judge did was legally correct, so it’s OK” camp, and the “it’s ridiculous to send kids to jail because their parents hate each other” camp. No comment on the second camp, but the first camp is simply wrong, and here’s why:
The Least Restrictive Viable Alternative
The relevant part of Michigan State Law here is a precedent established in several cases, but stated most clearly in Chicago Board of Education v. Terrile 47 Ill. App.3d 75, which tells us that “…the State may not pursue a governmental purpose, albeit legitimate and substantial, by means which abridge fundamental liberties more broadly than necessary. The purpose must be achieved by means of the least restrictive viable alternative.”
There is absolutely no world in which sending three children to jail for 4, 8, and 9 years respectively for four years is “the least restrictive viable alternative” for dealing with a charge of contempt of court. It may be that the judge considered other alternatives, but there’s no record of that consideration.
Reason Reigns…For Now
Fortunately, the judge seems to have understood that. Both the children’s father and their guardian ad litem filed a petition for the judge to allow the children out of the detention facility, and she agreed. The children have been released to a two-week summer camp, with a review to be held after the camp is over — a far cry from their original review date of “when [the eldest child reaches] 18 years old.”
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