A leading Tennessee lawmaker —concerned that kids have been shackled and improperly jailed—is drafting legislation to ensure that accused truants receive prompt appointment of legal counsel when facing prosecution in the state’s court.
Sen. Mark Norris, the State Senate Republican majority leader, has been active in national campaigns to promote alternatives to school suspensions and juvenile detention through the Council of State Governments, a legislators’ policy group he chairs.
Norris was motivated to act in part by a Center for Public Integrity investigation into how truants in Tennessee’s Knox County were shackled and taken to juvenile hall to be confined in cells—without first having the benefit of defense attorneys who could have raised questions about kids’ unaddressed special learning needs or mental-health problems.
[For more of this story, written by Susan Ferriss, go to http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/12/19/16542/tennessee-gop-leader-drafts-bill-ensure-accused-truants-get-attorneys]
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