SE Oakland News

A family court judge in Michigan last Monday denied a motion to release a 15-year-old girl who's been held at a juvenile facility for over two months after she did not complete her online schoolwork and for continuing to be a threat to her mother.

Judge Mary Ellen Brennan told the teenager, “I think you are exactly where you are supposed to be,” reported Bridge Michigan. “You are blooming there, but there is more work to be done.”

Attorneys for "Grace," the teenager whose incomplete online schoolwork was a violation of her probation, argued that the support she is getting at the juvenile facility is inadequate, and the prosecutor supported her release. Caseworkers for the court and the Children’s Village, where Grace is being held, testified she should be kept at the facility.

Grace’s case has garnered a great deal of attention, and the Michigan Supreme Court is reviewing it, according to Bridge Michigan.

Her classmates from Groves High School protested outside the Oakland County courthouse, demanding her release, reported CBS Detroit.

After the hearing, Grace and her mother embraced momentarily, the first time they have had physical contact since mid-May due to COVID-19 restrictions, Bridge Magazine reported.

Brennan, during the two-hour hearing, told Grace, “This morning for you, respectfully, it is going to get worse before it gets better. Because I am about to go over all the crap, all the negative, all the prior attempts at helping. I am going through it all,” Bridge Michigan reported.

Grace was charged with assault and theft last year and also for biting her mother’s finger, pulling her hair and stealing another student's cell phone.

Her probation in mid-April required her to complete her schoolwork online. Grace has ADHD, does receive special education services and reportedly was struggling to transition to online learning.

“She was not detained because she didn’t turn her homework in,” Brennan said during the hearing, according to Bridge Magazine. “She was detained because I found her to be a threat of harm to her mother, based on everything I knew.”