Judge orders parents to attend her fundraiser or risk losing custody of kids

CLEVELAND – A youth court judge who’s seeking reelection in the Mississippi Delta raised money to host an autism awareness event. Then she ordered parents with cases pending before her to attend the fair or risk losing custody of their children, according to an emergency petition filed by the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services.

In a quick response, the Mississippi Supreme Court issued an order Friday evening that prevented Bolivar County Youth Court Judge Aelicia Thomas from proceeding with the requirement. Thomas went ahead with the event Saturday, telling families they would receive credit for attending.

Nearly one-third of Bolivar County residents live in poverty, and CPS estimated 300 children and their families would have been impacted by the judge’s mandate to attend her event as part of the families’ efforts to regain or maintain custody of their children.

“For those families who cannot attend, the Bolivar County Youth Court Judge has threatened during court proceedings that those families will have ‘problems,’” CPS said in the petition it filed Friday.

The consequences could have been severe, CPS argued: “The potential for families to be separated permanently hangs in the balance for each and every parent targeted for involvement in this fundraising event, an event that cannot possibly apply to ‘all open cases’ in Bolivar County.”

Thomas said in an interview that she told parents they were required to attend, but that she would not hold it against them if they did not show up.“No, they won’t have any problems,” she told Mississippi Today. “There’s no problems to be had.”

Instead, Thomas said, this spat is indicative of a power struggle between CPS and youth court judges. She said when she took office more than three years ago, she started forcing caseworkers to more thoroughly investigate calls of abuse and neglect.

“When you haven’t had to do that and still pull a check, it can be a little frustrating,” she said. “If you ask any county court judge across the state of Mississippi, you’ll hear the same thing.”

At the entrance of the Bolivar County Expo Building hosting the event Saturday, each person attending was asked to fill out a digital survey that included a question about whether they had a case before the Bolivar County Youth Court.

The fair featured vendor tables and presentations by a local pastor, therapists and a teen who had been in Thomas’ court and is now preparing to head to college. They spoke between raffles for puffer vests, roller suitcases and a foldable lounge chair. Speakers told heartfelt stories about raising children with developmental delays and asked the audience to challenge their assumptions about people with different abilities. Health care providers and social service organizations described their offerings and how to secure them. About 60 people filled chairs in the large room.

At the event’s close, Thomas told her youth court families to make sure they had signed in so they would receive credit. Thomas told Mississippi Today she will count parent attendance Saturday toward their safety plan, which could help them expedite closing their case.

“Most of the time when you have these types of events the people who need to receive the information are rarely the ones who show up to the room,” Thomas said. “So it was a way to try to get as many of my families in the room as I could.”

Families left the building with brown bags of burgers and Doritos.

Thomas was elected Bolivar County’s youth court judge in 2022 after serving as the prosecutor in the same court and as the mayor of Rosedale, one of the two county seats. Thomas advertises herself as a motivational speaker and founded her own for-profit consulting firm, Thomas Group Consulting & Training LLC, earlier this year. She is running for reelection this fall.

In its petition, the agency expressed concern that the autism awareness event could enrich Thomas. The address of the website selling T-shirts and an e-book in advance of the event bears the name of the firm.

Thomas said her business, which she plans to use to offer public speaking and training, is not yet operating. She said she only used her company’s website to house the recent fundraising efforts because she didn’t have a chance to set the event up with the county. She said any money raised will be used to cover the cost of the event and any proceeds will go to the court.

“How do I get enriched by it?” Thomas said.

At the Saturday resource fair, Thomas, who has a son with autism, said in many of the court cases she oversees, developmental and behavioral disorders are frequently “the main issue of the case.”

Thomas also ordered CPS employees to attend her event, according to the agency’s petition, which stated that Thomas “has a reputation for being punitive and abusive” to CPS workers who “fall out of favor with her.”

Thomas said she had not read a copy of the petition. She said the only incident that might be seen as retaliation occurred when she informed the agency that one of its staff members had lied in her courtroom and she asked that they not come back to court.

CPS investigates child abuse and neglect, monitors households and makes recommendations. But youth court judges ultimately decide whether to separate or reunify families.

The agency acknowledged its emergency petition to the Mississippi Supreme Court was highly unusual in that it did not deal with an individual case or order but judicial conduct affecting all pending cases.

With its proceedings closed to the public and records held confidential, Mississippi’s youth courts are especially secretive. These courts deal with both family separations cases involving CPS as well as cases involving juvenile delinquency, such as when children commit an offense that would be treated as a crime if they were an adult. Petitions like the one the state filed Friday offer a rare window into the unusual and often informal operations of these special courts.

The state Supreme Court also recently suspended a youth court judge in another part of the Delta, Leflore County, after the Board of Supervisors filed a complaint with the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance. That judge had allegedly returned children detained for serious violations to their parents without court hearings after the closure of the county’s youth detention center.

Such complaints are confidential unless the judicial commission refers them to the state Supreme Court and the court takes action, which is rare. Legislation drafted this year to bring more sunshine and uniformity to the system died late in the session.

Youth court judges may make broad orders to parents who have lost their kids to state custody to conduct certain activities, such as requiring parenting or anger management classes, in order to reunite with their children.

But CPS argued it was not clear how parents or children would benefit from the community event Saturday, as flyers and promotional materials did not indicate whether the event will provide treatment, mental health screenings, education or other services geared toward reunification.

“As best MDCPS can ascertain, there will be food, vendor booths, and t-shirts from The Thomas Group for sale,” the petition reads.

Yet, the day before the event, Thomas was on Facebook live, saying she was still in need of hamburgers, buns and beverages. She said she planned to use a grant the youth court recently received from Youth Villages to fund the event, but she failed to secure approval from the Board of Supervisors. She also said she would create a separate CashApp to take monetary donations for the program.

“We’ll create it. ’Cause I wanna keep it separate,” she said in the video. “I don’t want nobody mixing up nothing with what I got going on.”