Tarrant County’s top elected official said Saturday he intends to eliminate the jobs of two juvenile court judges who have heard only about a third of their scheduled hearings, possibly contributing to overcrowding at the detention center.

The move would be the most drastic response so far to the myriad problems that the Star-Telegram has reported in the county’s juvenile justice system, including teens illegally held in adult jail, hundreds of youth hearings posted on YouTube with reality TV-style followings, and allegations that racism contributed to a disproportionately high number of Black and Hispanic youth being locked up.

County Judge Glen Whitley said that he and the commissioners will adopt a 2023 budget Tuesday that defunds the two associate judges’ positions. He previously suggested cutting their jobs in August after first reviewing a consultant’s report that detailed the judges’ light workload. But Whitley has now confirmed he intends to axe the positions when the board adopts a proposed $916 million budget on Tuesday.

The elimination of the two positions would reduce the budget by $500,000, Whitley said.

Whitley left open the possibility of alternatives, if the Juvenile Board makes recommendations that the commissioners agree on. The Juvenile Board an advisory panel made up of judges.

Whitley hopes the commissioners can meet with the board by October.

“We’re going to let (the two judges) stay in place until Jan. 1,” Whitley said. “And if they have not made recommendations and we reach something that we feel comfortable with on a go-forward basis, then on Jan. 1, those associated courts will no longer exist.”

The two associate judges are Andy Porter and Cynthia Terry. They are appointed and answer to Judge Alex Kim, who runs Tarrant County’s 323rd Juvenile Court and oversees the detention center. Kim, a conservative Republican, opposes the idea of defunding his judges and in a statement Saturday compared it to “Democratic policies” that would make the community unsafe.

The Star-Telegram has reported that one of the judges canceled or delayed 61% of the 744 hearings on the docket, while the other failed to hold 67% of hearings, according to a consultant’s review. Staff members at the detention center referred to that judge as a “ghost” court because it so seldom was in session. Sources told the Star-Telegram that it was in reference to Terry’s court.

Since the report, the judges have started to show up for work every day in recent weeks, a source told the Star-Telegram.

Terry is running unopposed this fall to be the 325th District Court judge. Porter is running for the Criminal District Court No. 4 bench.

Despite skepticism from the Juvenile Board on defunding the positions, Whitley said the commissioners still have the power to make the change through the budget. Whitley believes the votes will be there to make it happen.

Kim previously told the Star-Telegram that he trusted Whitley would see that the 323rd District Court was efficient during the pandemic and has “the lowest backlog index in Tarrant County.”

Whitley said that while Kim gives “good explanations” to problems with overcrowding, others tell a different story that make the explanations hard to evaluate.

“The problem is, is that I hear agencies that have provided services for our youth for decades saying things aren’t going right,” Whitley said. “I hear folks, I hear employees, I hear judges saying that.”

Kim told the Star-Telegram in an email Saturday that Whitley’s decision to defund the two positions was “consistent with Democrat policies that will not help keep Tarrant County citizens safe.”

“According to the Supreme Court of Texas, the 323rd District Court had the lowest backlog and was the most efficient court in Tarrant County,” Kim wrote. “It was also the 2nd most efficient District Court in Texas. Defunding Judges will not make our community safer.”

Whitley said he was disturbed by the Star-Telegram’s reporting last week that included how Kim kept his livestreamed videos of juvenile hearings on his popular YouTube account, where they got 1.7 million views until they were removed last year. In one video, Kim forces a 12-year-old to reveal names of adults who gave him guns, which put him at risk of retaliation. Kim also told the 12-year-old he could no longer contact his mother because she hadn’t attended a hearing.

“For me, even if a 12-year-old has committed a murder, he still should be able to talk to his mom,” Whitley said. “And maybe even more so because he’s in the detention center for having committed a murder. So I’m just disturbed — I’m disturbed at a lot of things. We were always disturbed at the fact that those YouTube videos were so public.”

Kim allowed anonymous, real-time commenting during his livestream hearings. Some users made racist comments and encouraged Kim to be tough on the juveniles.

While all judges pivoted to video hearings during the pandemic, Kim kept up the practice long after in-person court resumed.

County commissioners have raised concerns about racism after the consultant’s report on overcrowding noted that on one particular day this summer, 107 detained juveniles were people of color and nine were white.

Kim told the Star-Telegram last week that “the racial disparity in the entire criminal justice system is disturbing.”

This story was originally published September 10, 2022 1:17 PM.