IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE

MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE

AT NASHVILLE

D YLAN J. G EERTS

V. CASE N O. ____________

RUTHERFORD COUNTY , T ENNESSEE

COMPLAINT

1. Plaintiff Dylan Geerts brings this civil rights action for damages pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §

1983 against Rutherford County, Tennessee based on Defendant’s having illegally

incarcerated Plaintiff as a juvenile in violation of his federal Constitutional rights.

PARTIES

2. Plaintiff Dylan Geerts is a citizen and resident of Rutherford County, Tennessee.

3. Defendant Rutherford County is a political subdivision of the state of Tennessee.

JURISDICTION AND VENUE

4. This Court has federal question jurisdiction over the federal claims in this matter pursuant

to 28 U.S.C. § 1331. Venue lies in this district pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b)(2) because

all claims related to this case occurred in this district.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

A. R UTHERFORD C OUNTY ’ S I LLEGAL P OLICIES P ERTAINING TO THE

P RETRIAL I NCARCERATION OF C HILDREN
5. Rutherford County’s juvenile justice system has been led by Judge Donna Scott Davenport

since she was elected as the County’s sole Juvenile Court judge in the year 2000.

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6. As the sole Rutherford County Juvenile Court Judge, Judge Davenport’s roles include both

her judicial duties, as well as ultimate administrative authority over the operation of

Rutherford County’s Juvenile Detention Center (“JDC”).

7. Direct administrative control over the operations of the JDC is exercised by Ms. Lynn

Duke, the JDC Administrator.

8. Ms. Duke serves at Judge Davenport’s pleasure.

9. In February 2003, Judge Davenport ordered the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office, as

well as all municipal police departments within the county, that any time a juvenile was to

be charged with a delinquent offense the child must be taken into custody and transported

to the JDC to be “processed.”

10. On April 11, 2017, Judge Davenport referred to this policy as “The Process” in federal

court testimony in U.S. Middle District Case No. 3:16-cv-1975, E.J. v. Templeton.

11. Judge Davenport’s purpose in requiring that children be taken to the JDC for “processing”

was to give JDC staff the opportunity to incarcerate them pending a juvenile court detention

hearing, which would generally be held two to three days after they were booked.

12. In March 2003, Judge Davenport issued a detention protocol to Ms. Lynn Duke,

Davenport’s JDC administrator, instructing JDC staff to incarcerate children pretrial

whenever (a) there was probable cause that the child had committed any delinquent

offense, and (b) staff deemed incarceration to be in the child’s “best interests.”

13. In 2008, Administrator Duke formally implemented a “Filter System” in the JDC Standard

Operating Procedures (“SOP”) that established specific guidelines for these “best interests”

incarceration determinations.

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14. The “Filter System” instructed JDC staff to incarcerate children in a wide array of

circumstances, including non-violent misdemeanor offenses committed by children with

no prior delinquent history.

15. Tennessee law strictly prohibits the pretrial incarceration of children in a secure detention

facility absent certain strictly circumscribed prerequisites, such as the child being charged

with a violent felony, a weapons offense, or a probation violation. T.C.A. § 37-1-114(c).

16. The Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center is a “Secure Facility” within the

meaning of T.C.A. § 37-1-114 et seq.

17. Pursuant to the Rutherford JDC’s “Filter System,” JDC staff have routinely incarcerated

children in a wide array of circumstances that obviously did not meet the legal prerequisites

for secure detention under Tennessee law.

18. The JDC’s illegal pretrial detention policies continued unabated until the U.S. District

Court for the Middle District of Tennessee issued a preliminary injunction on May 15,

2017 in the case of E.J. v. Templeton, 3:16-cv-1975, commanding the JDC to stop illegally

incarcerating children.

B. THE ARREST AND INCARCERATION OF CHILDREN IS EXTREMELY DAMAGING

19. Arrest and detention of children cannot be taken lightly, as study after study document its

deleterious effects on children and society.

20. Incarceration of juveniles increases recidivism. Children placed in secure detention are as

much as 13.5 times more likely to return to the system. Benda, B.B. and Tollet, C.L.

(1999), “A Study of Recidivism of Serious and Persistent Offenders Among Adolescents.”

Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol. 27, No. 2 111-126.

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21. Congregating delinquent youth together negatively affects them and increases their chance

of re-offending. Researchers call this process “peer deviancy training,” and report

statistically significant higher levels of substance abuse, school difficulties, delinquency,

violence, and long-term adjustment difficulties for those youth held in settings like juvenile

detention centers. The researchers found that “unintended consequences of grouping

children at-risk for externalizing disorders may include negative changes in attitudes

toward antisocial behavior, affiliation with antisocial peers, and identification with

deviancy.” Dishion, T. J., McCord, J, and Poulin, F. (1999), “When Interventions Harm:

Peer Groups and Problem Behavior.” American Psychologist Vol. 54, No. 9 755-764.

22. Arrest and detention “systemizes” youth. Children who have been arrested and detained

“go deeper” into the system, and are more likely to face adjudication and disposition from

the system, disrupting families and visiting upon these children all of the negative effects

known to exist for family disruption.

23. Arrest and detention interfere with normal developmental processes by which children

typically “age out” of delinquent behavior through the normal process of maturation. Most

children who engage in delinquent behavior naturally desist such behavior by adulthood,

but arrest and detention interferes with this normal maturing process, such that children

who are arrested and detained are more likely to persist in such behaviors.

24. Detention makes mentally ill youth worse. Research published in Psychiatry Resources

showed that for one-third of incarcerated youth diagnosed with depression, the onset of the

depression occurred after they began their incarceration. 4 Kashani, J.H., Manning, G.W.,

McKnew D.H., Cytryn, L., Simonds, J.F. and Wooderson, P.C. (1980), “Depression

Among Incarcerated Delinquents,” Psychiatry Resources Vol. 3, 185-191.

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25. “The transition into incarceration itself,” one researcher wrote, “may be responsible for

some of the observed [increased mental illness in detention] effect.” Forrest, C.B., Tambor,

E., Riley, A.W., Ensminger, M.E. and Starfield, B. (2000), “The Health Profile of

Incarcerated Male Youths.” Pediatrics Vol. 105, No. 1 286-291.

26. Detention puts youth at greater risk of self-harm. Researchers have found that incarcerated

youth experience from two to four times the suicide rate of youth in the community at large.

Parent, D.G., Leiter, V., Kennedy, S., Livens, L., Wentworth, D. and Wilcox, S. (1994),

Conditions of Confinement: Juvenile Detention and Corrections Facilities, Washington,

D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

27. Juvenile correctional facilities often incorporate responses to suicidal threats and behavior

in ways that endanger the youth further, such as placing the youth in isolation, a practice

that is mandatory at the Rutherford County Detention Facility.

28. Detained youth with special needs fail to return to school. Juvenile detention interrupts

young people’s education, and once incarcerated, some youth have a hard time returning

to school. A Department of Education study showed that 43 percent of incarcerated youth

receiving remedial education services in detention did not return to school after release,

and another 16 percent enrolled in school but dropped out after only five months. LeBlanc

(1991), Unlocking Learning; Chapter 1 in Correctional Facilities, Washington, DC: US

Department of Education.

29. Another researcher found that most incarcerated 9th graders return to school after

incarceration but within a year of re-enrolling two-thirds to three-fourths withdraw or drop

out of school: After four years, less than 15 percent of these incarcerated 9th graders had

completed their secondary education. Balfanz, R., Spiridakis, K., Neild, R. and Legters, N.

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 (2003), “Neighborhood Schools and the Juvenile Justice System: How Neither Helps the

Other and How that Could Change.” Presented at the School to Jail Pipeline Conference,

Harvard University.

30. Young people who leave detention and who do not reattach to schools face collateral risks:

High school dropouts face higher unemployment, poorer health (and a shorter life), and

earn substantially less than youth who do successfully return and complete school.

31. The failure of detained youth to return to school also affects public safety. The U.S.

Department of Education reports that dropouts are 3.5 times more likely than high school

graduates to be arrested as adults. U.S. Department of Education (1994), Mini-digest of

Education Statistics. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.

32. Placing youth in detention reduces their usefulness to themselves and society in the labor

market. Looking at youth age 14 to 24, Princeton University researchers found that youth

who spent some time incarcerated in a youth facility experienced three weeks’ less work a

year (for African-American youth, this figure increases five weeks less work a year) as

compared to youth who had no history of incarceration. Western, Bruce and Beckett,

Katherine (1999), “How Unregulated Is the U.S. Labor Market?: The Penal System as a

Labor Market Institution,” The American Journal of Sociology, 104: 1030-1060.

C. P L A I N T I F F ’ S U N L A W F U L D E T E N T I O N

33. Plaintiff Dylan Geerts was arrested and charged with non-violent, non-weapons delinquent

offenses on or about September 14, 2014, by officers of the La Vergne Police Department.

34. Mr. Geerts was a minor at the time of the arrest.

35. The arresting officers transported Mr. Geerts from the scene of the arrest to the Rutherford

County Juvenile Detention Center.

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36. Mr. Geerts had no prior delinquent record, was not on probation, and he did not otherwise

meet the mandatory statutory prerequisites for detention in a secure facility.

37. Regardless, the JDC booking staff incarcerated Mr. Geerts pursuant to the Filter System.

38. Mr. Geerts remained incarcerated at the JDC for the next four days.

39. The illegal incarceration infringed Mr. Geerts’s liberty and imposed mental anguish,

emotional harm, and psychological distress on him.

CLAIMS FOR RELIEF

COUNT I: ILLEGAL PRETRIAL INCARCERATION IN VIOLATION OF FOURTEENTH

AMENDMENT PROCEDURAL DUE PROCESS

(42 U.S.C § 1983)

40. Plaintiff hereby reincorporates paragraphs 1 – 39 by reference.

41. Tennessee law uses explicitly mandatory language and substantive predicates to protect

children from pretrial incarceration in a secure facility unless the child’s circumstances

meet strict, narrowly defined legal prerequisites. T.C.A. §37-1-114(c).

42. At the time that Mr. Geerts was arrested, Rutherford County’s pretrial juvenile

incarceration instructed JDC staff to incarcerate children in a wide array of circumstances

that went far beyond the scope of T.C.A. § 37-1-114(c)’s strict criteria.

43. The JDC is a secure facility within the meaning of § 37-1-114.

44. Because of the County’s Filter System policy, JDC staff failed to apply the § 37-1-114(c)

secure detention criteria in making their decision to jail Mr. Geerts.

45. Mr. Geerts would not have been incarcerated at the JDC if the booking staff had given

bona fide consideration to the § 37-1-114(c) secure detention prerequisites.

46. JDC staff acted under color of law in imposing the illegal incarceration.

47. The illegal incarceration infringed Plaintiff’s liberty and inflicted emotional harm on him.

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COUNT II: ILLEGAL PRETRIAL INCARCERATION IN VIOLATION OF FOURTEENTH
AMENDMENT SUBSTANTIVE DUE PROCESS

(42 U.S.C § 1983)

48. Plaintiffs hereby reincorporate paragraphs 1 – 39 by reference.

49. Children have a federal substantive due process right to not be incarcerated pretrial in a

secure facility absent a narrowly tailored compelling governmental interest.

50. Tennessee law strictly defines the circumstances that it considers to constitute a sufficiently

compelling basis to justify the pretrial incarceration of a child. T.C.A. §37-1-114(c).

51. Rutherford County’s pretrial juvenile incarceration policies prior to May 15, 2017,

instructed JDC staff to incarcerate children in a wide array of circumstances which violated

the children’s substantive due process liberty rights.

52. Mr. Geerts was incarcerated in violation of his substantive due process liberty right.

53. JDC staff acted under color of law in illegally incarcerating Plaintiff.

54. The illegal incarceration infringed Plaintiff’s liberty and inflicted emotional harm on him.

REQUEST FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, these premises considered, Plaintiff prays:

1. That Defendant Answer this Complaint within the time provided by law.

2. That this cause be tried by a jury.

3. That judgment for Plaintiff enter against the Defendant on each count.

4. That Plaintiff be awarded nominal damages on all counts.

5. That Plaintiff be awarded compensatory damages in an amount determined by the jury.

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 6. That Plaintiff be awarded attorney’s fees and reasonable litigation expenses, including

expert witness fees, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 and F.R. Civ. Pro. 54(d).

7. That the court costs in this matter be taxed to Defendant.

8. That Plaintiff be awarded pre- and post-judgment interest against Defendant.

9. That Plaintiff be awarded all other relief to which it may appear he is entitled in the

interests of justice.

Respectfully submitted,

s/ Kyle Mothershead_________
Kyle Mothershead, BPR 22953
414 Union Street, Suite 900
Nashville, TN 37219
T: (615) 982-8002 / F: (615) 229-6387
E: [email protected]

/s/ Wesley Clark__________

Wesley Clark, #32611
2706 Larmon Avenue
Nashville, TN 37204
615-984-4681
615-514-9674 (fax)
[email protected]

s/ Mark J. Downton_______
Mark J. Downton, #20053
2706 Larmon Avenue
Nashville, TN 37204
615-984-4681
615-514-9674 (fax)
[email protected]

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