Imprisoning Juveniles at Issue in Appeal Against Knox Judge

Knox County Juvenile Court officials have locked up more than 140 children over the past four years for truancy, two lawyers claim in an appeal on behalf of four teenagers. All four either went to juvenile detention or ended up on probation, threatened with jail, for failure to attend school. Lawyers Dean Hill Rivkin and Brenda McGee argue Juvenile Court Judge Tim Irwin's handling of the cases violated Tennessee law and the children's Constitutional rights. Rivkin, a professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law, and McGee want to expand their case into a class action to cover other teens they believe were jailed for truancy. The News Sentinel has the story