Templeton wanted guidance. She believed the boys throwing punches were too young to be charged with a crime. An assistant district attorney agreed. The assistant DA also told Templeton she didn’t believe there was any single charge appropriate for all the kids gathered around. But Templeton still wanted to charge them all.
Inside the judicial commissioners’ office, Hamlett discovered an alternative to conspiracy to commit assault.
Her search turned up a Tennessee statute defining “criminal responsibility for conduct of another.” It says, in part: A person is “criminally responsible” for an offense committed by another if “the person causes or aids an innocent or irresponsible person to engage in” the offense, or directs another to commit the offense, or “fails to make a reasonable effort to prevent commission of the offense.”
Hamlett shared her find with Templeton. They went through the statute line by line, with Anderson joining in.
“I looked at the charge to the best of my ability, from my experience was like, ‘Yeah, that’s, that’s the charge,’” Templeton would later say. (When she subsequently apprised a higher-up in the police department, the higher-up wasn’t so sure. But he didn’t warn her off. “No one ever said no,” Templeton said later, adding, “If somebody told me, ‘No, stop,’ I would have stopped.”)
In the United States, it is typically the prosecutor’s job to review a police investigation and decide what charges, if any, to file. But Tennessee allows counties to hire judicial commissioners to fill this role. From issuing warrants to setting bail to conducting probable cause hearings, Rutherford County’s judicial commissioners can take on tasks that traditionally fall to judges or prosecutors — without needing the legal training of either.
County judges recommend people for the job. County commissioners appoint them.
Rutherford County opens the job to anyone with a Tennessee driver’s license and a high school diploma, supplemented by some college-level course work or vocational training and some office work.
Anderson, a county employee since 1998, was disciplined shortly before this case. According to investigative records, she had passed a note to a sheriff’s clerk. The clerk tore it up, then left with Anderson. Someone fished the note’s scraps from the trash and taped them together. The note read: “Could I get a few? If not, that’s fine. It’s my hip.”
In an internal sheriff’s investigation, the clerk admitted giving Anderson two prescription painkillers. That was illegal, a lieutenant wrote. He informed a county judge, who said they “would handle the situation administratively.” Anderson received a letter of warning, according to her personnel file.
Hamlett started as a judicial commissioner in 2008, making $8.50 an hour. Her application listed a high school diploma, and no college. Her previous job was in a small-town post office where her responsibilities included “computer work and general office duties.”
When Hamlett came up with “criminal responsibility for conduct of another” as a possible charge, there was a problem. It’s not an actual charge. There is no such crime. It is rather a basis upon which someone can be accused of a crime. For example, a person who caused someone else to commit robbery would be charged with robbery, not “criminal responsibility.”
But in the judicial commissioners’ office that Friday afternoon, 10 petitions were issued, each charging a child with “criminal responsibility.” The petitions didn’t distinguish the kids’ actions; the documents were cookie-cutter, saying each child “encouraged and caused” two other juveniles to commit an assault.
Templeton signed each petition. Anderson also signed at least some of them. Templeton then left the judicial commissioners’ office, the 10 petitions in hand.
After the four arrests at Hobgood, other children named in the petitions were brought in by their parents or rounded up by police.
(Templeton, through her lawyer, declined to comment. Anderson and Hamlett did not respond to interview requests. A supervisor in the judicial commissioners’ office told us the two had no comment, and neither did he.)
Officers arrested and handcuffed both children, even as the girl cried and begged to stay with her mother, and the mother pleaded with police not to use handcuffs. . . . Afterward, her other children had nightmares of being arrested, she said. The officers put the twins in a patrol car and took them to the juvenile detention center to be processed.
On Saturday, the day after the scene at Hobgood, police went to the home of a sister and brother who were 12-year-old twins. In court records they would be identified as J.B.#1 and J.B.#2. Officers arrested and handcuffed both children, even as the girl cried and begged to stay with her mother, and the mother pleaded with police not to use handcuffs. The mother recently said, “It hurt me to my heart … for them to take my kids.” Two of her other children watched the arrests, as did three of her nieces. Afterward, her other children had nightmares of being arrested, she said.
The officers put the twins in a patrol car and took them to the juvenile detention center to be processed.
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