Latest / Dumb Defenses / 18. Special Guest Annette Smith
Transcript
- Frankie: Hello and welcome back to the Dumb Defenses podcast, where we go around the world and through time to bring you the weirdest legal theories. I'm Frankie. Judah: And I'm Judah. Frankie: And this week we have another special guest, our friend Annette Smith. We'll be chatting a little bit about her work with the troubled teen industry. But before we get to that, today's Fresh Hell is an assault on the First Amendment. Judah: good. Frankie: We've got a whole bunch of sources, the Knight Center at Columbia, PBS article, some actual case law, a Newsweek article by Hannah Perry and Alex Backus, a CJR article, as well as I've just been watching MSNow all week and so various things that I've picked up from those broadcasts. Judah: I know what this is. And can we please link the video of Trump's thing that has no audio at the Frankie: I need to find it. I have the video Judah: Okay. Frankie: of him making the announcement. I need to find the video of him having no audio. So Trump has banned CNN, MSNow, and Politico from the White House press corps because they were fake news and not being nice to him. He also threatened that additional revocations of press badges could be coming. So these people, not only is he like waving hands and everything, they're hard passed. they're like RFID badge that they use to get into the press corps have been revoked. So like they are not allowed in there anymore. this isn't the first time that something like this has happened. You might remember that back in February 2025, Trump revoked press credentials for the AP when they refused to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Because as it turns out, you can't just rename things. This, as one might guess, has been a quote flagrant violation of the First Amendment, end quote, according to Jamil Jaffer, who's the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. So let's revisit the language of the First Amendment. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of people peaceably to assemble. And to petition the government for a redress of grievances. So MSNow, CNN, and Politico have all filed suit against President Trump and three of his advisors. I think they had a hearing Judah: I have a really good idea. Frankie: on that today or tomorrow. What's up? Judah: I have a really good idea. We make a bingo card of all Frankie: Ha ha ha. Judah: the major rights Frankie: And see which ones he eliminates. Judah: Yeah, and we just start crossing off. And if we get to a a full bingo, we're allowed to go to the beach and scream at the top of our lungs for as long as we want. Frankie: that plan. I like that plan. so the Knight Institute supported the AP in their lawsuit by filing three different amicus briefs, which are like friend of the court briefs. They're not really a party, but they are writing briefs to kind of help the court figure out what's going on. That happens in a lot of cases, especially when there's public interest like here. the Knight Institute also supported the New York Times when it was facing restrictions in access to the Pentagon. And they've also successfully sued Trump over Trump's blocking of critics on his Twitter account, successfully arguing that Twitter was in fact a public forum. They are also supporting the news outlets in this current lawsuit. So aside from the plain language of the First Amendment, and Rachel Maddow has referred to this example as the example that you would use to explain freedom of the press to a second grader. In 1964, the New York Times won a libel suit against an elected official from Montgomery, Alabama. That ruling has been quoted in the filings by CNN, MSNow, and Politico. and that ruling described the free press as quote, a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide open, and that it may well include vehement. caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government officials. End quote. You gotta grow a thicker skin if you're gonna be in public office. Right? So we've talked previously about how there can be restrictions on speech as long as it's a time, place, and manner restriction. and those are totally constitutional. But this is clearly a content-based restriction because he's not revoking all press passes. He's only revoking the press passes of MSNow, Politico, and CNN. So when the president kicks the media out of the press corps those who shine a light on his bullshit but not those who don't, that is very clearly a content based restriction and is wholly unconstitutional. and like Rachel Maddow said, this is how you explain it to a second grader, like this is that clear of a violation. So CNN is also a part of the press pool, which also includes ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC. And so the press pool, what that is, is the group of agencies, essentially they rotate as to like who has the primary camera view. So when you see videos of like Trump in front of Marine One. Talking to the cameras and you can actually hear him above the the whirr of the helicopter. One of those five agencies is actually recording that video and sharing it with everybody else. So because CNN was one of the agencies that had their press credentials revoked, the rest of the press pool said, Fuck y'all, we're not filling in for them. And The press pool is on strike essentially. And so as Judah alluded to, there is video of Trump talking to cameras, but you can't hear him because you don't have the press pool who know how to properly mic somebody when they're not in the best acoustic situation. Okay. Judah: I've just sent Frank an article from Newsweek. Frankie: Did you find it? Judah: I did. And I've watched this video several times and cackled Yeah. Frankie: Awesome. I will share it in the show notes along with the original video of him making this announcement. Judah: So this news article is titled Video Shows Near Silence during Trump's speech after media ban Frankie: Yeah. Judah: by Alia Shoaib. And it's a delight. Frankie: Yep, so we'll drop that in the show notes. it it's a pretty good video. So, in response to the press poll saying bye, Trump announced that he is launching Trump TV, The Essentials Station. This was described by the deputy assistant to the president, an individual named Kaelin Door, that it would be a live stream of the administration's greatest hits. Unfiltered. I think the first thing they showed was a speech from like two years ago. Judah: Side note on this, I was just cause I'm interested in this. when they started streaming, they had a total of five thousand viewers and the live commenting Frankie: And it yep. Judah: feature had to be disabled within a Frankie: Yep. Judah: couple of minutes. Frankie: Yep. And I think it was within a couple of hours, it had dropped to like three thousand. And then a couple hours after that, it had dropped to one thousand people. So like people tuned in to see what the fuck this was, and then they're just like, fuck this shit, and left. So I do want to remind people that while this little bit of Schadenfreude is fantastic, this is all in line with Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. Which claims, quote, no legal entitlement exists for the provision of a permanent space for media in the White House campus, and the next administration should re-examine the balance between the media demands and space constraints of the White House premises. And additionally, that the next administration would need to, quote, examine the nature and relationship between itself and White House Correspondents Association and consider whether an alternative coordinating body. might be more suitable. So Project 2025 was very much into no freedom of the press and going towards this state-run media system the way they have it in North Korea. So this is another step down this slippery hill that we are tumbling down with this deranged individual in the White House. So That's always fun. Judah: does our guest have any thoughts on this? Annette Smith (She/Her): I just started reading a book last week called The Nerd Reich, which is you know, referencing the Third Reich, but it's talking about these tech billionaires and Silicon Valley bros and all of these people that have been plotting for decades to really create what we're seeing now. And it's kind of a good time to read it. I think it just came out maybe not that long ago, but Frankie: Mm-hmm. Annette Smith (She/Her): it's terrifying. Like this is all a big plan. it's all trying to centralize power with this core group of people. You know, we look at all of these. like the media companies that own so much of even local news, local broadcasts, and it's just centralizing power. And Frankie: Mm-hmm. Annette Smith (She/Her): I mean I'm not surprised it wasn't Project Twenty Twenty Five. But also the idea that they have limited space at the White House to like Frankie: Yeah, that's bullshit. Annette Smith (She/Her): Restantly. Well Frankie: That's that's total bullshit. Judah: Yeah. So so for our bingo cards, we've got First Amendment, we've got the Fourteenth Amendment couple times around. Second Frankie: Mm, mm-hmm. Judah: Amendment Frankie: Well and that was the other thing with this revocation of the press credentials. Not only are they suing under the First Amendment, they're also suing under the Fourteenth, because they had no due process prior to having these credentials revoked. Judah: I don't wanna spoiler alert too much, but next week I'm going to be talking about one of my favorite groups in America, the Church of Satan, and its fight for freedom of religion. So forecasting ahead there. Frankie: Nice. Yeah, that's that'll be a good one. So that is this week's Fresh Hell. we'll see how that develops. And we fully recognize that we are recording this a week before it will be dropped, so there may be some new developments upcoming that if something happens, I'll add it to the show notes, just so that we are up to date on things. So next up We have Annette, who has been practicing law a little bit longer than me. and she's done a lot of work on trying to dismantle the troubled teen industry. So we're super excited to have her on. Judah: And she's an award winner. You won the Juvenile Advocacy Award Frankie: Yes. Judah: for the Oregon Criminal Defence Lawyers Association, was it two years ago? And you weren't Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah, I think it was. Judah: there, 'cause I think you were doing advocacy work. Frankie: Yep. Annette Smith (She/Her): I'll go with that narrative. I was actually I think physically on a boat with a bunch of friends in New Orleans, but Yeah. Judah: Your self care is what that was. Yeah. Frankie: Self care. Mm-hmm. Yep. Absolutely. Judah: And have you won other awards that I don't know about? Annette Smith (She/Her): maybe in the past, you know, college scholarship type stuff. But I Frankie: Yeah. Annette Smith (She/Her): was very honored and very sad to have missed the presentation of my award, but I was very honored to receive it. So thank you. Judah: Fantastic. Well, Annette, do you wanna jump in and tell us about what is the troubled teen industry? Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah, so just to put it into context, I'm an attorney that gets appointed to represent kids or parents when their families are involved in child welfare proceedings. So my lens into the troubled teen industry started through the view of somebody who works with kids that are committed to the custody of the state. And I started becoming aware of the troubled teen industry right away when I started practicing in this area because oftentimes what happens when foster kids are in the system And they either don't have enough placements or they don't have placements that are willing to have kids that have higher needs. they start looking at what they call a higher level of care. And a higher level of care often includes sending kids to these facilities. So when we talk about the troubled teen industry, what we're talking about is that's an umbrella term, it's a colloquial term, it's not a legal term, but it refers to the system of essentially residential or facility placements for children that are identified to have higher needs. the general public might be familiar with things like boot camp when these kids get go, you know, go get scared straight in the woods. We're gonna send you to a boot camp in the wilderness so that you learn that life is hard and it's supposed to like make you resilient or whatever. People have also heard of therapeutic boarding schools or or sort of these camps or schools that kids go live at. Where they're supposed to be immersed in a therapeutic environment and they're supposed to have on-site services where they go to school and receive therapeutic services in the same environment. So, when you think of the troubled teen industry, I want you to think of any setting in which kids are sent away from their home to a facility ran by staff with the purported purpose of it being to help the child or to provide some sort of therapeutic benefit. So we see therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness survival camps. Camps, treatment facilities, behavioral modification camps, juvenile detention, juvenile facilities. And it's kind of this umbrella term that encapsulates all of them. There are a lot of reasons and ways that kids end up in these programs, and I don't want to minimize the fact that some of those reasons are legitimate concerns. So sometimes kids end up in facilities because somebody is worried about them because they have an eating disorder or because they have self-harming behavior. Or suicidal ideation or substance abuse issues, or you know, you can go down the list of things that people worry about the safety of children. the hard part is there is both a legitimate need for care and specialty care for kids with that level of need, and There are people that are bad actors that exploit that very real need by running these programs, overselling what they offer, and actually end up causing more harm than good. So often what we see in these troubled teen facilities is an overpromise of what sort of help the child is supposed to get there or is promised to receive there, and an under-delivery. and more often than I'd like to see kids are coming away worse off than when they went. They're getting sexually abused, physically abused, psychologically abused, neglected, medically neglected, and not to be a fearmonger, but oftentimes kids die. And I say that not just, you know, off the cuff. There are very, very real examples within the last calendar year of kids going into some of these facilities and and not coming home. So the troubleteen industry is a network of facilities that We want to trust to save kids and to help kids and to help families. but unfortunately, because it is this so unregulated thing and amorphous, kind of hard to define thing, they end up getting away with a lot and there's not a ton of oversight. there I can just keep rambling unless you guys have direct questions, Frankie: Ha ha Annette Smith (She/Her): but I can talk about the different ways kids get into the trouble teen industry. Okay. Frankie: Yeah. Yeah. Annette Smith (She/Her): So the the first pipeline that I became aware of just through my work is through state placement when a child is within the child welfare or juvenile justice system. There are other ways kids get in, including private placement. So private placement is when a parent is worried about their child or a grandma is raising their grandchild or whoever is raising the kid gets worried about them and literally goes on the internet and just looks up help for my troubled teen. I actually have a task for you while you're listening to this podcast. Hit pause. Go over to a web browser and just type in trouble help for my troubled teen, help for my teen with eating disorder, help for my teen with a substance abuse issue. And almost inevitably, the first things that pop up are advertisements for residential treatment facilities for kids. So private placement is a huge avenue in which kids actually get sent to these schools or programs. The other way is through disability services. So kids that are served through the DD system also can receive referrals for these types of Of placements and through schools, actually, for kids who are on IEPs and the current school district or school of origin is not able to meet their specific need, schools can also refer kids into these types of programs. So those that's the way that I see most kids end up in the troubled teen industry. And why there's not a one size fits all solution to try to tackle it and to try to kind of slow the pipeline of kids going in because it's coming from a lot of different places Frankie: How easy is it for a kid to get out once they're in? Annette Smith (She/Her): it can be really hard. and sometimes it's confusing too because sometimes the program will promise you like, this is just a 30-day program or a 90-day program. that's kind of what we're built for, but then like 90 days go by and it just goes on and on and on. I've seen and spoken with survivors from the trouble teen industry who spent years in some of these facilities, or they'll spend a year in this facility and they'll discharge and spend a year in that facility and discharge. So it can be really hard to get out once you've gotten in. The other thing is because we know that a lot of kids have real needs when they go into these programs, and we know that some of these programs really don't address those needs. You would, you know, expect to get hospitalized or get sent into a program. It works, and then you get to come home. But what I see oftentimes is that it doesn't work. They still have high needs, they still haven't gotten a successful placement option outside of that setting. And then they just go to the next program and keep doing it. oftentimes, particularly for privately placed children, magically their treatment recommendation just so happens to match what insurance will cover. so if your insurance, if your parents' insurance is willing to just keep paying and keep paying and keep paying, gosh, look at all this help this kid needs. Look how much progress is still needing to be made. but then magically insurance only covers six months. wow. Look at all this progress they're they've made, they're ready to discharge. So I've seen anywhere from, you know, just a couple weeks, few days kind of thing to years. Frankie: And so how did you get involved? I know through your work you had probably clients getting into these facilities, but how did you get involved with the advocacy work and that end of it? Annette Smith (She/Her): So I would say probably I don't know maybe 10 years ago, maybe 12 years ago, I had a couple of young people that I represented in foster care cases get sent to two a boy and a girl, each at sort of different times, but one right after the other got sent to this program in Portland. And both of them came back just sharing the same pretty terrible experience. this was in youth villages up in the Portland area, the prior version of it, whatever. and so around that time I had actually reached out and was talking with Senator Sarah Gelser Blouin in Oregon about my concerns. We had actually, I think, in both of those cases litigated in juvenile court my concerns about those placements. Again, similar issues. They're close in time to each other, one on the boy's side, one on the girl side. And it wasn't going well for either one of those young people. and around that time is when Senator Gelser Bluein was working to actually close down youth villages back then. And there were some other scandals that were kind of going on with similar programs. And so I had first met her through that context. Fast forward to about I think 2017, I had a young client who was nine at the time get sent to a facility out of state. And I was told that this facility was approved for ICPC, which stands for the Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children. And it's basically an agreement where one state contracts with another state to oversee a child who's in the custody of the state when there's a child welfare proceeding. Right. Frankie: And that'll happen for family, it'll happen for placements, it'll happen like if a kid is traveling across state lines to be placed somewhere, it doesn't have to be one of these facilities, right? Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah, correct. so I was told there was an ICPC approved for this program in Montana. I was not given a lot of information about that program, really up until the motion was filed to have the kid placed there. and so, you know, at the point in which I ended up consulting with my client about it, you know, she didn't know a lot about the program, but she almost was kind of like excited to go. I think at some point she, because it was in Montana, I don't know who told her this or why she thought this, but she thought there might be horses there, and she was kind of excited, like maybe there are horses. but But anyway, long story short, DHS gets on an airplane with this kid. It was actually the first time she ever flew anywhere on an airplane. they fly her then drive her to this facility in Montana. They drop her off and basically just don't have anything to do with her. more or less for the next six months. They weren't doing face-to-face visits. They weren't really kind of paying attention to her. and I, as the attorney, flew out there and visited her. Her mom flew out there and visited her. And we were really not seeing progress. We weren't seeing her succeed at any of the goals that they had set. I kept trying to get information about what is she actually doing. Like you're telling me she's doing therapeutic services, but what is she actually doing? I ended up getting on the phone with her treatment I don't even know what he was called, like her treatment coordinator. And I said, you know, like what are your treatment goals? What are what are you what are you doing? And he really couldn't articulate any goals. I was very worried about her. Her mom was very worried about her. And then In a I believe it was a phone call, but at some point my client had shared with her mother that they were doing forced medication through injectables. And so that was a big red flag for me. I kind of got on the phone with some people, found out more, it blew up. And around that time I coordinated with Sarah Gelser Blouin again, who was looking at this issue around that time where Oregon was kind of sending a lot of kids out of state to these treatment facilities. I think there were somewhere over 80 kids. Kids at that time were already being sent out of Oregon for treatment. So we started looking at really what was happening for this kid. It blew up. It turned out DHS hadn't done face to face. There were a lot of excuses about it. They had originally tried to tell her that they had contracted with a third party agency to do the face to face visits, but the company they told her did that actually didn't even have a service in Montana. Like it just didn't exist. So Frankie: Well and what what's super important about that is DHS regulations require that they have face to face contact with the child that they're guardian of once a month in their placement. Yeah. Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah, in in their placement, in their home. Yeah. So, and that just wasn't happening. So there was a lot of information flowing from Oregon DHS to Senator Gelser Blouin about my client that just wasn't true. and a lot of excuses. Long story short, they brought her back. And around that time there was a lot of attention and drive to bring these Oregon kids back. So that's when I got more involved with the political advocacy, more of trying to come up with systemic solutions versus me just kind of nitpicking on individual cases. Judah: Well, and about that time there was a death of a young man at the Provo Canyon School in Utah where we had Oregon children placed at the Provo Canyon School, which was later Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah, and we Judah: shut down. Annette Smith (She/Her): we also had a young person not through the child welfare system but through a voluntary placement at another facility in the Midwest. And a child, it was right around the same time that George Floyd died. but this boy was killed in a very, very similar way, Cornelius Fredericks. And Oregon had a young person placed in that same facility when that happened. and that kind of displaced him as well. So, It was a really a scary thing that Oregon was sending these foster kids out of state for a lot of reasons because these facilities weren't safe, but also it makes oversight so much more difficult. And that's really intentional. That's part of the model of this industry they want to build facilities in remote locations, in kind of hard to run from places. So they're out in the woods, they're out in the boonies, they're not in town where it's easier for kids to run oftentimes. and they cater to or specifically seek out placement from kids who are not from that area or that state. Oftentimes they'll have kids from the area or the state there too, but most the majority of the kids in those programs are not from that state. They also like to build in states with lower regulation, like lower oversight. So Montana, Utah, Missouri, Florida, Tennessee, some of these places where the oversight is a little bit different than how we would do things in Oregon. And the other Another thing that they like to do, the industry likes to do, is they like to build facilities in small rural towns because they employ a lot of people. They Frankie: Mm-hmm. Annette Smith (She/Her): hire locals to work as staff in these places, to be cooks, to be night staff, to watch the facility, so that it becomes a really integral part of the economy in those small towns, so that shutting down these facilities or holding these facilities accountable becomes even more difficult. And that is built into the business model really intentionally. Frankie: And are these people trained? Are they actually credentialed to be working with kiddos with these high needs? Annette Smith (She/Her): Right. So the attorney answer is it depends, right? Frankie: Right. Annette Smith (She/Her): but for the most part, no. I would say most people who go work in these facilities, like floor staff who are actually spending time with these kids most of the time, I think most of the time they have to be eighteen, maybe a high school diploma. They're supposed to probably pass a background check, although we often see people working at these facilities that were never background checked. So some of these programs say we have an on-site therapist, we have an on-site nurse, we have an on-site teacher. And I guess in theory, some of them might be licensed to do those things. But one of the reasons why this industry is so difficult to actually regulate is because they like to be amorphous in what they call themselves. So they will say, we're not a school, we don't have to comply with education law and education standards and then they'll say well we're not really a jail so we don't have to comply with the jail regulations and the jail standards and we're not really a this and we're not really a that so regulating the industry is really really difficult some of these programs there was one program I think in Utah that was literally started by a guy who was a shoe salesman he sold shoes and he's like I think I can help some kids and he like built this program. Some of these programs are faith-based and so they have like a pastor who may or may not have ever gone to college. other than maybe high school. and so it it kind of depends. It depends on who you're working with, it depends on what facility you're talking about. But oftentimes I would say the majority of people that the child is actually interacting with on a regular basis is not a LCSW, a psychologist, a social worker of any kind. Frankie: Yeah, and you compare that to something like where, you know, we commit adults to the Oregon State Hospital or to a mental health facility, those people all do have to be like at the very least a CNA in order to have those jobs. So just the lack of oversight is quite stark especially when you're considering these are kids. These are children. Annette Smith (She/Her): And a lot of people who work in these facilities are are grad students. Like they're getting their clinical hours because they're getting a degree in social work. Or you know, I like to talk to staff when I go visit clients in these facilities and just like be friendly and be like, hey, wow, how did you come to work here? Just kind of get to know them. and I can't even tell you how many times people are like, yeah, I wanna be a cop I wanna be a probation officer and I'm just doing this for an hour. My buddy got me this job and you know, I used to be a fisherman up in Alaska, but then this came up and I'm like I don't know what credentials that gives you to boss kids around in a facility and help them, but sure. Frankie: Right. Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah. Judah: Well and I wanna like throw in there what we haven't mentioned is these facilities at the very minimum cost tens of thousands of dollars a year, but on the Frankie: They're so expensive. Judah: average end we're talking a hundred thousand dollars plus. And so Oregon, you know, that's just the system that Annette and I are familiar with, with spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to send children to facilities where I Happen to know personally there was a child that was at a facility for six months and didn't speak to a therapist one time. Hundreds Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: of thousands of dollars. Annette Smith (She/Her): I had a child client in a facility, this actually happened in Oregon, where she was being sent from one county to a different county into a facility in a different county and her insurance hadn't switched over yet because we have these CCOs or whatever. So Frankie: Yeah. Annette Smith (She/Her): she gets to the new facility and she actually goes to show up and talk to the therapist and ask for help because she's kind of adjusting to being in this new place and they said, your insurance hasn't kicked over yet. I can't talk to you. Judah: Yeah. Frankie: the Oregon insurance system is in of itself a complete and utter bear that needs to be overhauled, but that's a different episode. Judah: As we mentioned last week, Oregon is forty ninth of fifty states for quality of mental health care. The governor a couple of years ago declared a state of emergency for youth mental health care. And you know what I I'm like jumping ahead, like reading ahead in the book because Annette and I have worked on this and I've followed her lead so much, but these are like hypothetically supposed to like spackling in the gaps. And what we're consistently Frankie: Mm. Judah: seeing is that it's further traumatizing children whose behavioral issues are manifestations of trauma. Frankie: Yep. Yeah. And so like in terms of these facilities, clearly they're not giving the types of treatment that they should be giving, but they're doing more than that in terms of harm. So let's talk about that for a little bit. Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah, so my client that was sent out of state, her primary issues and diagnoses were related to PTSD. and she had some attachment issues, right? So like reactive attachment type issues. And so you're taking this nine-year-old who already is traumatized, like primary diagnosis, PTSD. You're gonna put her on an airplane and fly her several states away and plunk her there with people she doesn't know in this facility where it's dirty, it's cold, it was winter for part of the time that she was there and she didn't have adequate winter clothing. actually, when I flew out there, her mom had sent me on the airplane with a big jacket for her because she was cold. And then she really didn't receive therapeutic services. She was chemically restrained. She wasn't given coping skills. She wasn't meaningfully learning tools to address her trauma or to overcome it. And in fact it was compounding. And she experienced abuse there. She was thrown to the ground. She was thrown to the concrete ground at one point. She was restrained by staff physically, chemically. if you meet people who are survivors of these troubled teen facilities or talk to kids who are currently in them, one of the really common things that you hear, which is weird because they're not They're not all talking to each other from facility or facility, but these things are so common throughout the thread of the troubled teen industry that you hear about it all over the country. you hear about people playing butt darts or injecting booty juice, and those are words that you hear all over the country from different programs, and it refers to the injectable medication that they give to kids to chemically restrain them, calling it booty juice. Sometimes it's Haldol, sometimes it's high amounts of antihistamine medications, you know, God knows what for some of these. And staff and kids will joke about it. you're playing butt darts. You're gonna go inject some kids with some medication or you better not act up. You'll get the butt darts. And it's like this colloquial phrase that has just like taken off because it's so commonly happening. Frankie: Well and and to be clear, like Haldol's a pretty strong antipsychotic medication, Annette Smith (She/Her): Mm-hmm. Frankie: right? And so when you talk about chemical restraint, why explain that a little bit more for for people who don't understand what that means. Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah, so chemical restraint is this idea that instead of taking somebody and putting them in handcuffs or bounding their hands and feet together to keep them from, you know, doing whatever you don't want them to be doing, I guess, they restrain them by chemical means, meaning that they inject them with something that's so sedative that they are immobilized from being able to act out or behave in a way that you don't want them to. So for my client who went out of state, for example, she was given high amounts of anti Histamines. I used to take, I don't think they recommend it anymore for sleep, or for allergies, but I used to take like a Benadryl to help me fall asleep sometimes if I was having a hard time falling asleep. One or two Benadryl. They would give her so much freaking Benadryl and then take her mattress off her bed so she would not be allowed to nap during the day. Like these are the kind of psychotic things that they're doing to children in the name of treatment. They were calling that therapeutic. Judah: And this is a little bitty nine year old girl. Annette Smith (She/Her): Yep. Yep. There's a girl that I'm aware of. She was not my client, but I'm aware of her. where the state who was investigating this allegation had information enough about this girl, but not her name, that she was being injected dozens and dozens and dozens of times with Haldol. So much that they were referring to her as Haldol Girl because the investigators didn't know her real name and they were trying to figure out who Haldol Girl was. Turns out Frankie: my god. Annette Smith (She/Her): it was this young girl, like a child who had some sort of developmental. disabilities, like she was a disabled young person, and they were chemically restraining her with Haldol so much it became a nickname. Frankie: And and Haliball's not something that you need to be giving to somebody who does not have a psychotic disorder. It's a very powerful drug. It causes a lot of really unpleasant side effects. It can completely screw up your digestive system. that is not a thing that needs to be just sort of willy-nilly given to people. Judah: Could we hop onto a different soapbox that's related to chemical restraint and talk about physical restraint and seclusion that happens Frankie: Yes. Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah. Judah: to children? Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah, so a lot of programs use physical restraint as a mechanism to control children and I think if we're gonna look at like what states are doing about it, Oregon is kind of a model for trying to create rules around when physical restraint is usable and when it is considered abusive. I think there's a lot of work to be done to continue to work on that issue. But in Oregon, for example, you have to be what's called CPI trained. CPI is a training model that teaches people essentially how to effectively restrain a child without injuring them or putting them in a position that could suffocate them or strangle them. And that rule that they be CPI trained is not a universal rule. There are programs all over this country that are just letting random people restrain kids. There have been a lot of children who have died as a result of unlawful restraint, unlawful seclusion. if you're secluding kids when you shouldn't be, and you're not properly monitoring their safety, kids can even die in seclusion. They can take their clothing and hang themselves. They can hurt themselves with whatever is in the room that you're restraining them. So even the idea that we're just gonna take this kid out of this like risky little situation or situation where they're unsafe currently and we're gonna put them alone in this room to calm down. One, there are terrible psychological side effects that can come from kids that already feel abandoned or already have trauma. two, it can be physically unsafe. Three, sometimes kids get left there so long, they're urinating on themselves, they're hungry, They can be cold, they can be just scared to be in the room. Sometimes it's dark. And you hear these stories even from like celebrities like Paris Hilton. She talks about decades later she still has nightmares about the room that she was secluded in and being locked in essentially solitary confinement, like a prisoner would be. it's been considered torture By organizations that study torture of prisoners. So yeah, seclusion and restraint are two hot topics in the troubled teen industry because they are overused, because they're used abusively, and because it's really hard to track and monitor when they're used, why they're used, what behaviors justify a seclusion or restraint. for example, I had a client who, when she was in a program that overused restraint, she was struggling to do a math problem and kind of blew out of the classroom because she was getting really frustrated that she wasn't understanding this math problem. And that resulted in multiple adults holding her down physically and restraining her. She went to a different program later and kind of had the same issue in math. She was struggling, she was frustrated, she kind of blew out of the classroom and they had therapeutic dogs. And she got to go pet the dogs and calm down while adults talked her through the situation. Frankie: That sounds significantly more appropriate. Annette Smith (She/Her): Right. I had a client who hadn't been in a physical restraint for years. He had been in different programs, he'd been in detention, Judah knows who this young man is. he got placed in a facility in the Beaverton area in Oregon, and within his first few days there was physically restrained by so many adults that when they finally watched the video of the restraint, they couldn't tell if my client could breathe or Not or if his *breathing was restricted or not, because there were so many adults on top of him that they couldn't really even see what was happening under the dog pile. Judah: Would you be willing to talk more about that young man? Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah, so I represented a young guy named Jacob and he I was my client for about nine years and he had probably the worst life of a kid in foster care that you can imagine. Basically anything you can imagine going wrong to a kid in foster care kind of happened to this young man. And he spent the last few years of his life going from facility to facility and eventually into hotel rooms and then from hotel rooms into Air BnBs and then from Air BnBs back to hotel rooms and his life. Was so terribly miserable that he ended up actually committing suicide while housed in a hotel being monitored by child welfare staff. He was able to leave the room and take his life. And I think about all of the things that lead up to a young person to take that final decision. And I think of all of these facilities that he had been in. I mean, I can hardly think of a facility in Oregon he hadn't been in. and if any of them had worked, if any one of them had worked in the, you know, more than six that he'd probably been in, we probably wouldn't have seen that result. So if they worked, why is this happening? Judah: Can I share like a brief story about this young person? Annette Smith (She/Her): Yes, you may. Judah: So he was in a horrible facility here in Oregon and he had been attacked by another child in the program and he had been physically injured. And then he went to a a temporary foster situation and he needed a place to just hang out for a few days so he didn't have to go into a hotel room. So Annette called me and said, Can you take him? And I said, Yeah and he'd never been camping before. So I decided to take him camping and he had agreed. We're gonna go camping. He'd never been camping. I had the camper and I got my fingerprints done and got my background check done and luckily I passed. and when I picked him up, his face was swollen, his mouth was split open, he had a big bruise on one side of his face, and I think he was about fifteen at the time. And so I drove him out to this lovely little campground and we you know, I backed the camper up and I had my dogs and he was so great with the dogs. He just loved the dogs. Turns out he hated camping. He hated it. He couldn't have hated camping more. it was like this impossible, like instant dislike. But all night, I was sleeping in one area of the camper and he was kind of sleeping in this other bunk bed area. All night, every few minutes he would call out to me and he would say, Are you still there? Are you still there? And I said, I'm still here. I'm still here and that that happened all night, so neither of us had slept and then the next day I brought him to my house, which he liked a lot better. There was more dogs and there was pizza pockets and video games. Frankie: Ha ha ha Judah: But I think about like his little like a little boy voice. Just like a sweet little child who needed the reassurance. Are you still there? Are you still there? And I would just say, I'm still here. I'm still here and I think about all the terrible things that happened to that boy, to that child, and he's no longer Annette Smith (She/Her): I Judah: with us. Annette Smith (She/Her): and I remember I think Judah, you had told me this, that when you got him, he would ask is it okay if I use the bathroom? Judah: Yeah. Annette Smith (She/Her): and kids that are institutionalized lose like you should just be able to go to the bathroom. But like they're so institutionalized that they can't even do basic things without asking for permission. Yeah. Judah: Yeah. He asked right after we parked. he really loved the dog that I brought with me and so we had just parked and I was back in the camp rep and he was really worried that my dog was thirsty and he kept Can I give her some water? Can I give her some water? And I was like, Yeah, you can do whatever you want. Can I feed her dinner? Yeah, you can feed her dinner and when I stopped I think on our way back and we stopped and parked to just get some food and he asked permission to get everything that he wound up getting for lunch and I like, You can have literally whatever you want. Can I have French fries? Yeah, you can have French fries. Can I have a milkshake? Yeah, you can have a milkshake. You can get whatever you want. But he asked for everything. Each thing. Annette Smith (She/Her): I think that's one of the things that's kind of missed in some of these conversations around kids going to these facilities for treatment or for care is they miss out on all these normal life experiences. They're not learning how to navigate normal peer relationships. They're not able to form enduring friendships. So this kid, the best friends this kid ever had in his life were kids he knew from the program who every once in a while they'd pop up and they'd both be at the same program at the same time and they remembered that kid from three years ago. But some of these programs, the kids aren't allowed to tell each other their last names because they don't want these kids finding each other outside of the program and communicating. They don't want those long-term relationships. Could you imagine spending years of your life not getting to know somebody longer than a few months when you're in a program together? and you don't even know their last name. They're not going to prom, they're not getting their driver's license. They're not having to navigate breakups and relationships in the normal, healthy way that teens experience. They're not, you know, having to go to school with a kid you don't like all day and then come home and get a break, right? I had a young girl who was in a facility in the Portland area and she was just constantly being harassed by these other kids in the program. And when I talk to the program staff about it, they're like, You don't remember being teased in high school? You don't remember having a bully in high school. school, like what's the big deal? Well I got to go home at night. I got a reprieve. I got a break from that. This kid lives with that all the time and staff's not protecting them. So like I don't think it should be missed how harmful it is to remove kids from normal life even when they have high needs, even when they're struggling, even when they have a diagnosis or a legitimate medical or mental health concern, those kids still deserve the normalcy of community. They deserve to be treated in their homes, in their communities. at least have connection with people that are in their life and love them. and that gets missed when we're sending kids away, especially when we're sending them out of state. Judah: I worked and you've heard this story before, but I worked with a young man that when I was appointed to be his lawyer, he was in his thirty sixth placement and he was fifteen and a half. And I still keep up with him. He's an adult. he's just sweet, bright, delightful. you know, I still think of him as a kid, but he's like a young adult now, but if like a kid but he's a he's a grown up. And after I'd known him about six months, he was at this facility and he had some things he wanted for Christmas and he had one of the worst caseworkers in America. And so I got together in the office and we kind of pooled some resources and we got him some simple things off his Christmas list, like a beanie And some comic books and some other books and I took that up to him and DHS was supposed to be providing him with a Christmas present. That wound up being the only Christmas presents he got that year. And when I delivered those Christmas presents to him, I said, Well, what else, you know, what else can I give you? And he said, I just want one person in my life who's not paid to care about me And, I wound up reaching out to a friend of Frankie and mine and she and her husband kinda took him under their wing and later adopted him as an adult. But like that was his big wish. He just wanted one person in his life who cared about him, who wasn't paid to care about him. And that was one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever heard. Annette Smith (She/Her): just to kind of bring this back to the TTI, it's pretty common for kids to end up in the troubled teen industry, privately placed, after essentially a failed adoption. there are a ton of facilities that like even advertise and cater to the adopted community and seek out parents that are interested in rehoming their children or sending their children off. and the other kind of insidious thing that's happening is that more and more of these facilities are opening up overseas. They'll be American owned facilities, but they will open in Jamaica or Samoa or these different places and Americans will be profiting from it. Americans are sending their children to them. but the people that are actually working in the facilities are nationals of the country that the facility is in. So there was a big scandal a few years ago at Atlantis Leadership Academy in Jamaica where a whole group of American adoptees were put in this facility. The people who were running the facility were arrested and criminally charged with assault for the things that they were doing to these children. They were waterboarded. They were starved. They were educationally Frankie: my god. Annette Smith (She/Her): neglected. They were medically neglected. And I've gotten to know some of these boys who were in this facility and what they experienced in these places were torture. It was torture. one of these young men from Atlantis Leadership Academy is Jonah Bevins, and his dad was the governor of Kentucky. there's a lot you can find about that family in the news right now, but this kid had been adopted from another country when he was an infant, probably for political expediency and and campaigning purposes. And as soon as Jonah was no longer useful to Governor Bevan, he just sent him to this place. Then they refused to get him. They just left him there and let him go into the child welfare system in Jamaica. Frankie: my god. Annette Smith (She/Her): I heard that there was another facility on a different part of the island that has at the time somebody told me about it, they were estimating approximately 120 American children in this other facility, most of them abandoned adoptees. So this is an issue that affects foster kids, adopted kids, white kids, black kids, queer kids, all sorts disabled kids, all sorts of children are impacted by this system. And the more vulnerabilities you have, the harder the system I think is on you. So I think that's something to be recognized as well. Frankie: So I know you've been working with some advocacy around this industry and trying to corral it. What successes in that advocacy have you been able to be a part of or what has happened? Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah, so from a young person who went to Montana and came back, she started working on a statewide level with Senator Gelser Blouin to try to pass some regulations and share her story about bringing kids back from being out of state. but she's also done some advocacy around seclusion and restraint practices and some other things. So locally, like within the state, we've been able to work on rules about transport companies, these people that come in and kidnap you and force you to go. to these programs. That's a whole segment of its its own. Seclusion restraint practices on a statewide level. At the time that Oregon was looking at bringing kids back from out of state, Utah was also looking at some regulations within their troubled industry problem because Utah is like the epicenter of the TTI. That's where Provo Canyon School is, where Paris Hilton was abused. That's where a lot of these facilities are, and it's a huge part of their economy. so at the time that we were looking at this in Oregon, there was a senator in Utah also working on this issue with Paris Hilton's team. And so Senator Mike McKell Utah connected with Senator Gelser Blouin in Oregon to kind of collaborate and talk about how each state was addressing this issue. And Senator Gelser was able to tell Paris Hilton's team and Senator McKell's team about my client who had gone out of state. And then Paris Hilton reached out and wanted to meet my client, which was really cool. And then we were both invited to Washington, DC in October of 2021 to start talking to legislators about a bill at that time. Time it was called the Accountability for Congregate Care Act. That bill morphed and changed names into what is now called the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act or SICAA, S-I-C-A-A. And SICAA is a federal law. that essentially creates a framework for studying and data collecting on these facilities. Because like I said earlier, one of the major issues is that it's so hard to regulate an industry that's amorphous and keeps redefining itself and claiming to be different things. And nobody's data tracking, like nobody's really tracking what's going on in these facilities and how they're classifying what they're doing. And so SICAA creates a framework for reporting data collection with the idea that more bills will come later to actually address specific concerns. It also seeks to set national treatment standards so that whatever is being provided in these facilities meets some minimum threshold of acceptability. But it's all a work in progress. So President Biden signed SICAA into law on Christmas Eve, his last year in office. And, you know, I'm hoping that that's gonna result in some good data that we can then go back and use on a federal level to promote more really direct legislation that directly impacts the kids. That are in these programs. Other than that, there are a lot of statewide measures going on all over the country. A lot of that is being supported by 11-11 Media, which is Paris Hilton's advocacy arm. A lot of it is incorporating lived experience experts, so young people and adults who were affected by this industry when they were younger. Young people who are currently still being affected by this industry are lived experience experts. And one of my favorite things about watching this ad. advocacy succeed and watching bills change and kids actually getting help is the huge weight that lived experience experts are willing to carry themselves and they shouldn't have to Child abuse victims should not have to be the ones who are coming forward talking about these issues, sharing their experiences and saying we need to do better. The adults failed them. The adults in charge of these systems failed them. And they are amazing young people who are coming forward to share very vulnerable experiences, very personal stories about themselves, often not being believed, often told they're being dramatic or crazy or making it up. they're putting their personal reputations and privacy and all of the things that people hold dear on the line to speak out for kids that are still being impacted. And I just I want to take a moment during this podcast to recognize that because I'm not a survivor. I'm lucky to be able to know survivors and learn from them. but they're the ones doing the heavy lifting on all of this. So I just wanted to recognize that. Frankie: Absolutely. Judah: Thank you. Yeah, they're heroic efforts by the Survivor community. There have been a couple of films and some documentaries that have come out in the past five or so years. Are there Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: any of those that you would recommend for people who maybe want to know more about the troubled teen industry and what it's doing to children? Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah, there's a lot of resources out there. So if you have Netflix, I recommend two specific documentary series on Netflix, just as a like a beginning primer. Like if you've never heard of this until this podcast, or you're just new to the troubleteen industry and you want to learn kind of like what's the history, where is this from? Hell Camp is one of them. And the Frankie: Very well done. Annette Smith (She/Her): And the program. those are the two that I would probably start with. There's lots of books. Paris Hilton wrote her story up which she talks about it a lot. and there's a documentary on YouTube called This Is Paris that you can read. And then Paris the Memoir is her book that you can read. There's Stolen by Elizabeth Gilpin. that's a good one. There's a book called This Will Be Funny Later by Jenny Pentland. Jenny Pentland is Roseanne Barr's daughter. and she is hilarious. She's incredible. and she shares her journey through the troubled teen industry when she was young and her parents shipped her off to essentially was like not I don't know if this is the right word to say but like fat camp like these camps that parents send their daughters to or children to when they want their children to lose weight. That was kind of her in-road in and then she experienced other sorts of institutional abuse there. There's podcasts trapped in treatment is one. But yeah, there's books, podcasts, documentaries, movies. There's a movie on TV, it's called Cruel Instruction. And it's a fictionalized version of what two real young women, I think Ashley and Courtney experienced at Provo Canyon School, but they fictionalized it and made it into like a lifetime type movie, Cruel Instruction. and my only criticism of watching that film, and I watched it on a watch party with other surveys. survivors was that even though it was graphic and showed a lot of abuse, I don't think it accurately portrayed how bad it actually was. It kind of went a little soft on some of that. But those are the ones that I would probably get started with. Frankie: I've read Paris Hilton's memoir and it is amazing. it's a tough read, but she does a really good job telling her story. Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah. Judah: I think that like people are still being surprised 'cause we remember Paris Hilton from two thousand and five, you know, to think that she's dedicated millions of dollars and thousands of hours of time and resources to preventing abuse to future generations that she experienced and that she is a leader in the field of preventing institutional child abuse in the United States. And Annette Smith (She/Her): It's it's pretty incredible. And it's funny too because when I've been to Washington DC and I've talked to people that work on the Hill or whatever. they've talked about how Paris is different than a lot of the celebrities that they see who come aboard and like want to support a particular piece of legislation or hot topic issue. And what she told me was like a lot of times a celebrity will get behind an issue while it's popular and like they'll have their 15 minutes of fame or whatever while they're promoting that particular issue. And then they kind of drop back and let the actual people working on the issue kind of push it forward and take it from there and they don't ever see them again. And what I heard about Paris is that people on the hill are impressed that she keeps showing up. She keeps sticking with the issue. And it's because it's personally important to her. Frankie: Super personal to her. Annette Smith (She/Her): affecting her. And the scary part is what she experienced in the early 2000s mirrors what is actually still happening now. And I think that was one of the main motivators for her to speak up now and to tell her story now is that what happened to her is still happening. And there's a phrase that I hear survivors and her including say, like the people you abuse today are the ones who are going to take you down tomorrow. And that's what I'm seeing in terms of the advocacy that's happening in this space right now. Judah: So there's been two important successful lawsuits in the state of Oregon. do you feel like it'd be helpful to talk about those at all? Annette Smith (She/Her): I know about the Wyatt B case, I'm not sure which one the other one is. The hoteling. Judah: The other one is the hotelling case. Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah, so I'm not the expert on the hotelling case. My understanding is that perhaps the settlement on that case expired. But there's a group in Portland, Oregon called Youth Rights and Justice. And they sometimes file advocacy type lawsuits for systemic reforms and to help improve things for kids overall throughout the state. And they filed lawsuit a long time ago around the issue of ODHS. Putting kids in hotel rooms instead of foster home placements. And it's really, really bad, obviously, to house a kid in a hotel room instead of a placement, especially when it's more than just a few days in between, right? And so the lawsuit ended up with a settlement agreement that was overseen by YRJ, Youth Rights and Justice, where they were supposed to be doing all of these things to prevent hoteling, including spending a lot more money preventing hotel stays. I think it was supposed to be two or three times. So whatever it cost to hotel a kid, they were supposed to be spending two or three times that amount each night to prevent the child from having to be hoteled. so that happened for a long time. And then you know, with mixed results, there were kids still hoteling, but maybe it wasn't as bad as it could have been. and then the Wyatt B case was a federal lawsuit that was filed by A Better Childhood, which is a firm in out of New York, and they go into different states and they sue some. State systems for reform. So they're not necessarily suing for money or suing for like specific damage to children. they're suing on behalf of classes of children to create reforms and oblige the state to do things that are supposed to help and make kids safer. So we had a settlement in the Wyatt B case and Almost immediately after that settlement, the state started with their shenanigans trying to find workarounds to not have to comply with the spirit of that settlement, including putting forth Senate Bill 3835, I think if that's the right number, where again they want to open up the floodgates to send kids out of state again. unfortunately they got a lot of traction with Governor Tina Kotek's office. She came and testified in support of this bill without really, I think, meaningfully getting the input from advocates. In this space and survivors and young people that are affected. and it didn't pass. We had a lot of really strong advocacy against it. We had a lot of young people come forward, parents, people willing to put their personal stories you know, out into the public. And 3835 did not pass. and as a result, in my belief, in retaliation for not passing it, Tina Kotek then vetoed a couple other bills that did pass that would have benefited foster kids, including one that protected. The right of siblings who are in foster care to have relationships with each other. It passed. The legislature passed it, and Tina Kotek vetoed it. I still hope that there is a Democratic governor in Oregon. I'm not telling you to vote against Tina Kotek. I'm asking Tina Kotek to listen to survivors and to listen to foster kids and people who represent foster kids and don't just listen to DHS when they're telling you things. But that one was really hard for me. Judah: That was a real blow I know that the juvenile defense community was very much up in arms, about thirty eight thirty five and you know, I think I provided some written testimony and it was Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah, I had showed up to actually testify in person and they ran out of time and they didn't get to me. I also provided written testimony. I think Senator Gelser Blouin is one of the most incredible and most effective legislators for kids' rights in Oregon. and I would love to see more collaboration between people that want to improve the system and people who are actually talking to advocates, talking to kids who are affected, talking to parents whose children are taken by the state. And that's a piece that I hope improves in our state anyway. and nationally, I'm sure. Judah: Well, thank you so Frankie: Absolutely. Judah: much. I mean this is I try to be calm most of the time, but a surefire way to get me blisteringly angry immediately is the way that children who are placed in these types of facilities are demonized and presented to the public when they bring forward their stories of abuse. Frankie: Absolutely. Judah: And given that so much onus is being put on this population, what are ways that people who have no experience with the troubled teen industry can support survivors? Annette Smith (She/Her): Yeah, so I think the most important thing is just to educate yourself on what's happening and have an open mind to believe kids when they tell you these incredible stories that just sound so like how could that happen? How could you possibly be telling the truth? That's so awful. just being open to maybe they're telling the truth. one of the really awful and true things about the troubled teen industry is it is smart. It is smart because it victimizes really good victims. It takes kids that are already vulnerable. It takes kids that are already having their credibility attacked. It's taking kids that are already being painted as bad or liars or troubled. And those are the kids that they're victimizing. So you get this kid into your facility and you're telling this child no one's gonna believe you, no one trusts you, you're a bad kid, you're a liar, everybody knows you're a liar. And if you say anything bad about our program, you're not gonna get your points, you're not gonna go up a level, you're not gonna graduate, you're not gonna get out of here, you're not gonna be able to leave unless you get with the program. So you're a liar and get with the program. Meanwhile, they're telling the caregiver on the outside or the person who placed the kid there, your kids don't love treatment, right? It's hard, we're doing hard work in here. They're probably gonna tell you we're starving them, they're probably gonna tell you we hit them, they're probably gonna tell you it's terrible here. Just expect it. Every kid does it, they're lying. Like we're taking good care of them, but they're just mad because we're making them do this program and nobody's ever made them do hard work before. And so they're priming the person who cares about this kid to not believe the kid. They're priming the kid who's getting mistreated. No one's gonna believe you. They're targeting children that are already vulnerable and have credibility issues. And then they're telling everybody else, we're not the problem. It's the kids. Judah: And they're making billions of dollars a year doing it. Billions. Frankie: Billions of dollars a year. Annette Smith (She/Her): Billions billions with a B, like billions of dollars. And a lot of it is taxpayer funded. A lot of Frankie: Mm-hmm. Annette Smith (She/Her): it is taxpayer funded. There's actually a congressional report called warehouses of abuse that you can look up. Senator Ron Wyden was one of the leads and Jeff Merkley were two of the leads on kind of this study. Thousands and thousands and thousands probably millions, I don't know. So much money, taxpayer money is going to pay for these programs that are supposed to be treating kids and they're not, all over the country. Frankie: Yep. So, Annette, you've been practicing for sixteen odd years. What is your favorite dumb off the wall out of left field defense that you have either used or heard of? Annette Smith (She/Her): thinking about this since you asked me that a week ago and I just I can't think of anything super good. And I think part of it is because I really love my clients and they're all people and people are silly and funny. And so something that they might think is a good defense. I might think is funny or silly. And I don't want to like disrespect them by describing it that way on a podcast. But I can't think of two examples. So one, I think I was about to get appointed on a case where my client was in a motorized wheelchair and he was being threatened with a driving under the influence charge. And I was like, that's not fair. That's not fair because they can't help the fact that their mobility is a motorized device. Like you wouldn't get charged. with DUII for walking home from the bar. So why can you get a DUII just because your wheelchair has a motor? but they ended up I think agreeing with me right away and deciding that would be a really bad idea. So that wasn't a dumb defense, but it would have been dumb for them to charge my clients. Judah: So so I was thinking more like maybe Governor Kotek's defense of thirty eight thirty five would count. Frankie: Yeah. Annette Smith (She/Her): That was real time. Judah: Yeah. Annette Smith (She/Her): the other one that I wanted to talk about was I had a client who I met him in jail. I was assigned to represent him in two cases. One was a possession of methamphetamine and one was a failure to appear on a criminal citation. so in Oregon, if you get cited to appear in court for a misdemeanor or a felony and you fail to appear at the court date you're cited, that itself can constitute a new crime and a new criminal charge. So when I met him, he had these two charges. so when I went to meet him, he told me that he had originally been cited on the unlawful possession of meth, but the cop screwed up. And the cop accidentally cited him into court on a Saturday. And so he had his ticket and it said Saturday. So he's like, I'm not going to court on a Saturday. Nobody does court on Saturday. and so he didn't appear at whatever fictional date in the future he was allegedly supposed to appear at. And that was the second charge. So he's talking to me and he said, no, they cited. Into court on Saturday, I swear, I promise. And I said, Do you still have a copy of your ticket? And he goes, My girlfriend does. So I call his girlfriend, I crossing my fingers. Do you still have a copy of his original ticket? And she's like, I do. I'll bring it to your office. So she brings this citation to my office. It's one of those carbon copy where it's like the yellow page underneath the white page, and then they rip it off and give you your yellow copy or whatever. so she brings me the carbon. Copy and sure enough, it's cited into court on a Saturday. So I take my little hiney over to the DA's office and I'm showing the district attorney, y'all cited my client into court on a Saturday. What is this about? So she goes, let me go check into it, let me go talk to the officer. So, what actually happened was the cop realized after he cited my client that he screwed up and cited my client into court on a Saturday. And instead of doing the right thing, which would have been to go find my client and write him a new ticket, they knew where he lived. Everybody knew where this guy was. Lived. Like they knew where to find the guy. It's a small town. They know where his house is. So they could have gone and cited him. They didn't. They just scratched out the original, wrote a new court date, turned it into the court. When my client failed to appear at that court date, he got cited. So the DA's office comes back to me and she's like, no, I think they just, you know, maybe gave him a different court date. And I think I don't know if they told him. And I don't know. So here's what we'll do. How about your client pleads guilty to the unlawful possession of meth and we'll dismiss the failure. To appear. And I nope. Frankie: So so kind hearted. Annette Smith (She/Her): Nope. I'm going to move to consolidate them because your cop is a liar. Your cop is a liar and dishonest, and he's willing to tell the court that. And I want the jury to know that your cop is a liar. So their defense was, it was a mistake. It was an accident. It was an oversight. No, your cop's a liar. And my client may or may not have had that math. I don't know. I don't know, but I can't trust if he did or not based on what the cop is telling me because the cop is a liar and he didn't need to. That was the part that was so frustrating to me is it was so unnecessary. Like Frankie: Mm. Annette Smith (She/Her): they didn't need to do that. Because once my client did fail to appear on that fictional court date that he was never informed of, they went right to his house and arrested him on the warrant. They knew where he was. Judah: They they didn't they didn't mail him, they didn't give him a new ticket. I mean that's Annette Smith (She/Her): They didn't fail him. They didn't give him the opportunity. And my client spent time in jail when he otherwise probably wouldn't have because they held him in custody on a failure to appear because they are worried he's going to again fail to appear. Frankie: Right. Annette Smith (She/Her): He never had the opportunity to just show up on his ticket. and that that was stupid. That was a dumb, dumb defense of the bad cop. Judah: Can I can I share a story from a different lawyer that we all know? Annette Smith (She/Her): Yes. Frankie: Sure. Judah: so they were in court, it was an assault three that happened at a casino. And the DA's like, listen, we got all this video. The complaining witness named the defendant by name. Like you're screwed. but our friend's, Client's like, Hey, I'm innocent, I'm innocent, I'm innocent. I did not do this and so they go to court, the state puts the complaining witness on the stand and says, Do you see the man here in the courtroom today who attacked you and the guy looks around and he says, No, he's not here. Where is he? 'Cause this guy'd given a name and they had just arrested the next guy with that first name that they encountered and it was a completely different person. Annette Smith (She/Her): Crazy. Frankie: And this is what happens when cops don't actually do their job. Annette Smith (She/Her): I've heard of people like an a a defense attorney dressing for court in kind of grubby clothes and then having the defendant client dress really nice like a lawyer so that when the jury comes in they think that the defendant Frankie: That's switched. Annette Smith (She/Her): is the lawyer and the lawyer's the defendant. Anyway. Try to do a try to do an identification in the courtroom like that, I guess. Frankie: Yeah. Thank you so much. Light at the Judah: Alright, well thank you so much. I think n now it's time for light at the end of the Frankie: end of the tunnel. So my light at the end of the tunnel is all of our lovely protesters. So there's been a lot of heartburn around the Kennedy Center recently. The tarp that was put up to block The fact that maybe Trump did or didn't actually take his name off of the facade is still there. And Trump has also threatened to take it down if he doesn't get his way of getting his name put back up there because apparently he's the only one who can make it make money. So upon hearing this, on September 18th, hundreds of people joined hands around the Kennedy Center as a protest to Trump. wanting to tear it down. This event was organized by Hands Off the Arts. It included music and speeches from Kennedy Center staff, both past and present. And one of the protesters, not just that night, but for about a month, was named Laura Bligh. She had been standing out in front of the Kennedy Center with a multitude of signs since the end of August. Some of these signs, and I'll Put links to each one in the show notes because they are lovely. One of them says, shame on the Trump board, you have destroyed something precious. One says JFK, not DJT. One says, six theaters are dark. the Kennedy Center has a lot of lovely small theater spaces that would host theater arts, dance, things like that. That since Trump has made this power move they haven't been putting in anything up and it's not because the Kennedy Center was failing, it's because people don't like Trump. one of them says there's still an injunction, remember? And there's another one that has a anthropomorphized drawing of the Kennedy Center with a sad face on it that says, Save me from my board. So my light at the end of the tunnel for this week is protesters fighting back against this horrible regime that we are dealing with and making their voices heard. Judah: Thank you. I'm gonna include one thing in the show notes that I think is very important to watch. It's from the Lincoln Project Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: and it's advice about what you shouldn't do to a flock camera. so we're gonna include that video from the Lincoln Project. As they say clearly in the video, do not do not do this Frankie: Do not do this. Yep. Judah: to the flock camera. Frankie: All right, so next week I have a story of an evil twin defense. Judah: And I have the real horror of the Amityville story, real estate law. Frankie: So big thanks to Annette for joining us today. As always, like, review, and subscribe. Share the show that we can continue to grow. You can reach out to us on Facebook, Instagram, or Blue Sky, or by email at dumbdefensespodcast at gmail.com. let Judah: Frankie, have I got any cookie recipes yet? Frankie: me check my phone. Judah: I did all that math last week. Frankie: You did do all that math last week. Let me see. No, no cookie recipes. I'm so sorry. See you next Judah: Damn it, America. All right. Thank you so much, Annette. We'll see you next week. Bye bye. Frankie: week. Bye.