John Bambenek is climbing the charts at Digg with a shocking story about a 16-year-old high school girl thrown into prison and denied bail because she is accused of distributing flyers in her high school that “depicted a male classmate kissing another classmate and had the words ‘God Hates Fags.’” He notes that even accused murderers usually get bail.
Outrageous, right?
Well, not so much. If one follows the link in the story first to Fox News and from there to its link to the Daily Herald, it turns out that there’s a wee bit more to the story than a loony lefty judge gone berserk.
Citing concerns over the girl’s home environment and her already lengthy juvenile record, Judge Michael Chmiel denied the girl’s request for home detention. Instead Chmiel ordered her held in the Kane County Juvenile Justice Center while the case is pending.
The girl’s record, Chmiel said, features 13 contacts with police, including an arrest for marijuana possession in August. McHenry County court records show that within the past year the girl also has been charged for driving without a license, consumption of alcohol by a minor, possession of tobacco by a minor, trespassing and three curfew violations. “I’m concerned about you having some potentially negative influences around you,” Chmiel told her. “I think the environment is ripe for failure.”
The girl’s mother said her daughter had gone through some “rough spots” but had not been a problem in the home for at least a year. She later declined comment on the judge’s decision or the charges.
It’s rather hard to fault a judge for suspecting that sending a child home under those circumstances would be counterproductive.
