Judge King Denied Immunity for Scared Straight Stunt

What Happened on the Field Trip

On August 13, 2024, a group of teenagers visiting Judge King’s courtroom as part of a vocational field trip watched him preside over part of a homicide proceeding before the court went into recess. King then removed his robe and spoke to the group about his career as a lawyer for roughly 45 minutes, livestreaming the talk on the court’s YouTube channel. According to the lawsuit and the Judicial Tenure Commission’s own complaint, ELG, then 15, fell asleep during the lecture. King woke her and warned her; when she fell asleep again, he had her taken to the restroom, and court officers then locked her in a detention cell, handcuffed her, and had her change into a jail jumpsuit over her own clothes. She was held for nearly two hours before being brought back into the courtroom, still cuffed, where King staged what the lawsuit calls a “phony mock trial,” assigning her a random attorney, questioning her on camera about her personal information, and asking her teenage peers to vote on whether she should go home or be sent to juvenile detention. King later told reporters it was his own version of the television program “Scared Straight.”

King does not dispute that most of this happened. In his answer to the Judicial Tenure Commission, he admitted to many of the underlying statements and actions while arguing there was missing context and denying that any of it violated judicial ethics rules. In the federal lawsuit, which is still at an early procedural stage, the allegations are just that, allegations the courts must accept as true only for purposes of deciding whether the case can proceed at all; nothing about King’s civil liability has been decided.

Why Judicial Immunity Did Not Cover This

Judges are ordinarily immune from being personally sued over their judicial acts, a doctrine meant to let them rule without fear of a lawsuit every time a losing party is unhappy. But that immunity has limits: it covers judicial acts, not everything a judge does while wearing the robe. Courts ask two questions to draw that line: is the conduct a function normally performed by a judge, and did the person deal with the judge in his judicial capacity, or in some other, private capacity.

The Sixth Circuit found both factors cut against King. Court was not in session; he had left the bench and taken off his robe to speak as a former lawyer sharing career advice, not as a sitting judge resolving a dispute between parties who had invoked the court’s jurisdiction. There was no case number, no order, and no court record of any kind tied to ELG’s detention or the mock trial, a fact the court found telling, since a real court record is usually what signals a judge was acting in a judicial capacity even when procedure is sloppy. The court also noted that King himself later acknowledged to the press that he probably lacked authority to hold ELG in contempt at all. It found the case closely resembled an Eighth Circuit decision denying immunity to a judge who jailed two children in a courthouse lobby to scare them, and distinguished an unpublished Sixth Circuit case King relied on, where a judge’s conduct was tied to an actual pending case on his docket. The court affirmed the district court’s decision letting the lawsuit proceed and rejected a separate, narrower theory the family’s lawyers had also raised.

A Second Incident: An Attorney in Handcuffs

The Judicial Tenure Commission’s complaint against King is not limited to ELG. It also describes a February 9, 2022, preliminary examination in King’s courtroom in which a prosecutor asked for an adjournment because discovery was incomplete. According to the amended complaint, King questioned defense attorney Tyrone Bickerdt about whether he had received discovery, challenged his representations to the court, and ultimately had him detained in a holding cell for several hours without ever making a formal contempt finding or the on-the-record findings Michigan law requires before jailing someone for contempt. Bickerdt was eventually returned to the courtroom in handcuffs and released without ever being held in contempt.

The State Ethics Case

The Judicial Tenure Commission first authorized a public complaint against King in November 2025, then filed an amended complaint in March 2026 adding the Bickerdt incident to the ELG matter. The amended complaint cites Michigan Code of Judicial Conduct Canons 3(A)(1), 3(A)(3), 3(A)(15), and 3(C), along with Michigan Court Rules 9.104(1) and (2), covering a judge’s duty to faithfully apply the law governing contempt, to treat everyone in the courtroom with patience, dignity, and courtesy, and to avoid conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. King filed an answer denying that he engaged in judicial misconduct and, much as his attorney has argued in the federal case, has raised his own version of an immunity-style defense in the state proceeding as well. A public hearing before the Supreme Court-appointed Master is scheduled to begin September 14, 2026.

The Court’s Own Response

Separately from either legal proceeding, 36th District Court Chief Judge William McConico pulled King from his criminal docket within days of the field trip incident and ordered him into training, later described as covering cultural competency and sensitivity. By late September 2024, King had returned to the bench, reassigned to traffic cases rather than felony matters. Wayne State University, where King had worked as a part-time adjunct instructor, reassigned two courses he had been scheduled to teach and removed his faculty profile from its website.

How It Works in Texas

Judicial immunity is a distinct concept from state judicial-conduct discipline: immunity determines whether a judge can be personally sued for money damages, while a conduct commission determines whether a judge keeps the job. Texas judges enjoy similar immunity from suit for judicial acts under both Texas and federal law, while separately answering to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct (SCJC) for ethical violations regardless of whether any lawsuit is even filed. For a fuller walk-through of the Texas conduct process, see our explainer, The Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Explained.

How It Played in the Press

Few cases in this series have drawn coverage on this scale. NBC News, CBS News, Fox News, ABC affiliates nationwide, the Detroit Free Press, the Detroit News, and Reason all covered the original August 2024 incident within days, and outlets including Law360, Above the Law, and the ABA Journal followed the litigation as it developed. The Sixth Circuit’s immunity ruling and the Judicial Tenure Commission’s parallel ethics case have continued to draw coverage from Michigan Public Radio and legal-industry press through 2026.

Where Things Stand Now

Neither proceeding is finished. The Sixth Circuit’s ruling only means the federal lawsuit can continue; it returns to the district court for further litigation on the merits, and King’s liability, if any, has not been determined. The Judicial Tenure Commission’s case is set for a public hearing on September 14, 2026, after which the Master will issue findings, the Commission will make a recommendation, and only the Michigan Supreme Court can impose an actual sanction. King remains a sitting judge of the 36th District Court, currently assigned to traffic matters, while both cases proceed.

Sources

PRIMARY SOURCE

• United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Till v. King, Nos. 25-1558/1614, decided August 21, 2026. opn.ca6.uscourts.gov
• Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission: Pending Public Complaints, Formal Complaint No. 111, Hon. Kenneth King. jtc.courts.mi.gov

NEWS COVERAGE

• NBC News: Family of Michigan teen sues judge who ordered her handcuffed after she fell asleep in courtroom. nbcnews.com
• Detroit News: Misconduct complaint filed against judge who had sleepy teen detained (November 13, 2025). detroitnews.com
• AbusiveDiscretion.com: Detroit Judge Kenneth J. King’s Hearing Set for September in Misconduct Case (April 17, 2026). abusivediscretion.com
• Law and Crime: Judge who handcuffed sleepy teen says he has immunity (October 2024). lawandcrime.com
• Above the Law: Judge Who Handcuffed And Harassed Field Trip Student For Sleeping Could Face Consequences (May 2025). abovethelaw.com

REFERENCE

• Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct: FAQ. scjc.texas.gov
• Deandra Grant Law: The Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Explained. texasdwisite.com

This post summarizes public court records and news reporting for general informational purposes as of publication. It is not legal advice. Nothing here implies that Judge King’s civil liability has been determined or that the Judicial Tenure Commission’s pending case has been decided; both proceedings remain open.