Federal judge dismisses Indiana delta-8 legality lawsuit
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A nearly two-year-old legal battle is over — for now — after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit over the legality of delta-8 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) goods and other low-THC hemp products.
Judge James R. Sweeney II, of the U.S. District Court for Indiana's Southern District, wrote the suit is 'fundamentally' a 'question for consideration by Indiana's courts.'
Delta-8 is an isomer of delta-9 THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.
Plaintiffs 3Chi, Midwest Hemp Council and Wall's Organics filed suit in 2023, several months after an opinion from Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita found the products are illegal.
The opinion was a direct response to a request by now-former Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter and the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council. Local law enforcement agencies took note, with some notifying retailers they could get in trouble or even raiding retailers, according to the complaint.
The plaintiffs argued that Rokita's opinion violates the 2018 federal Farm Bill — which removed hemp from the definition of marijuana — and similar provisions in Indiana law by 'unilaterally' reclassifying their products as Schedule I controlled drugs. They also sought an injunction.
The judge determined the plaintiffs had standing to sue. But in an order filed Tuesday, Sweeney found they 'have not met their burden of demonstrating that their alleged injury is redressable by the Court.'
The 'problem,' Sweeney wrote, is that Rokita's opinion isn't binding and isn't law.
'Plaintiffs do not seek a declaration of their rights under federal law, given that no dispute over the Farm Bill is at issue; rather, they ask the Court to find that the Official Opinion is preempted by federal law,' the judge continued. 'But, as the Court has explained, an opinion is not state law, so it cannot, by definition, be preempted.'
Nullifying the opinion would still leave prosecutors and law enforcement free to interpret state law as they see fit — and so would leaving the opinion alive, per Sweeney.
And, with the prosecutor and law enforcement officer defendants already dismissed from the lawsuit, Rokita was the only defendant remaining. The judge wrote that plaintiffs 'have produced no evidence to demonstrate that (Rokita) bears any responsibility for initiating prosecutions, making arrests, or enacting criminal legislation,' so an injunction wouldn't do anything.
'That the Plaintiffs have hung their hats on challenging the Official Opinion in federal court is their own cross to bear,' he concluded. 'But fundamentally, this is a dispute about the proper interpretation of state law, which … is a question for consideration by Indiana's courts.'
He dismissed the case without prejudice, so the plaintiffs could choose to re-file in state court.
Lawmakers, meanwhile, haven't coalesced to clarify whether the products are legal or not. They have indicated a Senate-House stalemate is unlikely to give — but Senate Bill 478, regulating this 'gray area,' remains alive in the ongoing legislative session.
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D.C. juvenile court's reliance on ankle monitors had deadly outcomes
The boys were in trouble. Maurice Jackson Jr., 15, and Mylaki Young, 16, had both missed too much school and were suspected of committing crimes. By late 2022, they were living with five other teens in a vacant apartment in Southeast Washington. The place was strewn with ghost gun parts and bullets. After police raided the apartment, both boys were arrested. In D.C. Superior Court, Mylaki was charged with being a habitual runaway, while Maurice was already facing criminal charges from a prior arrest. The teens were outfitted with GPS ankle monitors to track them while they were free in the community, awaiting the resolution of their court cases. 'Youth installed on device 22-028488,' noted Mylaki's court record on Dec. 9, 2022, when Judge Sherri Beatty-Arthur ordered him released. '... Charger and instructions were provided.' It was Mylaki's first time on 'the box,' as many teens called it. But for Maurice, the box was nothing new. He had worn one just a few weeks earlier. The monitors were supposed to help authorities keep watch over them. From left: Tyshaune Young; her son, Mylaki Young; Maurice Jackson Jr.; and his mother, Brittney Malloy. (Family photos) But a Washington Post investigation reveals that D.C. juvenile court officials have lost track of at-risk young people at critical moments, as they have perpetrated crime or fallen victim to it, according to a trove of confidential documents and interviews with parents, guardians, former probation officers and court-involved teens. Rather than a secure way to track those suspected of crime, The Post found, it is a flawed system that relies on children as young as 12 to charge and maintain their own devices and that has been slow to act when they go dark. Five young people died while wearing ankle monitors under court supervision during a six-week span in the fall of 2023, according to previous comments from court and local officials. Also in 2023, a teen wearing a GPS monitor with a dead battery was charged in connection with the shooting death of another teen. Last summer, a 16-year-old boy wearing an ankle monitor was arrested after he allegedly shot and wounded three women. And last fall, a 12-year-old boy went missing after a judge admonished him for failing to charge his monitor but released him anyway. Some teens told The Post they have to sit with their monitors attached to an electrical outlet for hours to receive a charge that, until recently, would last only about 48 hours. One teen said the device is uncomfortable to charge while he is sleeping so he often lets the battery die, usually with no repercussions. 'What happens? Nothing,' he said. 'There is no point.' Others said they don't want to charge a device that will track them and possibly link them to crimes. One 17-year-old boy told The Post that wearing a charged monitor was not a deterrent: He said he robbed several people while being tracked. 'It's ridiculous to say to these kids, 'Charge these devices,'' said a former juvenile probation officer who, like several others, spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential proceedings. 'Why would I charge a device that's going to connect me to a crime? It's crazy to me.' Yet by the time Mylaki and Maurice were each ordered to wear an ankle monitor, the technology had been widely embraced by the D.C. juvenile court system. About 125 to 150 youths a day wear GPS monitors under D.C. juvenile court supervision while facing charges arising from robberies, auto thefts and possession of weapons, among other offenses. By contrast, in the mid-2000s, an average of 40 juveniles a day — mostly nonviolent offenders — wore ankle monitors under court supervision, annual reports show. One D.C. juvenile judge recently told The Post that he estimates 4 out of 5 youths under court supervision will at some point wear the devices. D.C.'s juvenile justice pipeline This series examines the District's juvenile justice system, a constellation of agencies tasked with preventing children and teens from becoming caught up in crime and rehabilitating those who have violated the law. Click on the tabs to learn more about key parts of the system, including public schools, the police and the youth detention facility, which are overseen by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D). Schools Police Courts Detention Rehabilitation Once arrested, a teen may face charges in court The Metropolitan Police Department, or D.C. police, is often the first agency that juveniles encounter in the criminal justice system. Juvenile arrests reached record highs in 2023, leading to an outpouring of community concern. In April, Police Chief Pamela A. Smith launched the Juvenile Investigative Response Unit to improve how police respond to youth crime. The court's reliance on ankle monitors has followed a broader national embrace of the technology as an alternative to juvenile incarceration, with a growing body of research finding that jailing youths does not improve recidivism rates and can cause long-term harm. D.C. judges often require ankle monitors for juveniles who have been arrested and released, allowing them the benefits of staying in school and being with their families until their next court hearings. The monitors are rarely, if ever, used in isolation; youths are often ordered to abide by a curfew and report for after-school programs and other services. The job of supervising these teens falls to probation officers who work for the Family Court Social Services Division, a small agency that is part of the federally funded D.C. Superior Court system and provides updates in an annual report to Congress. These officers keep notes on good and bad behavior for each youth under their watch and can recommend that judges loosen or tighten the rules. In some of the cases reviewed by The Post, however, judges continued to release D.C. teens on GPS monitors despite records of poor compliance. And some experts say the practice has exploded in popularity despite no evidence that it acts as an effective behavioral deterrent or rehabilitative tool for developing adolescent brains. Kate Weisburd, a law professor at the University of California College of the Law in San Francisco, said that she understands the appeal of ankle monitors, but it's a 'false narrative' to assume that they improve safety or lead to better outcomes for youths. 'It puts the onus on the young person to abide by all these conditions, and it shifts the responsibility away from institutions, systems and officials whose job it is to support young people,' said Weisburd, a former juvenile defense attorney who has studied the rise of GPS monitoring. 'A monitor is just a black box. It doesn't educate young people, it doesn't rehabilitate them, it's not a substitute for going to school or getting counseling or things like that. … It's like a poor, Band-Aid solution, if you will.' GPS ankle monitors like this one are used to track young people suspected of crime. (Valerie Plesch/For The Washington Post) Terri Odom, the longtime director of the Court Social Services Division in D.C., left her position at the end of February, two days after The Post requested an interview with her to discuss the deaths of juveniles under her agency's supervision. Odom, who said she had previously announced her intention to retire after 20 years of employment, referred questions to current court officials. Court spokesman Doug Buchanan declined to make any court officials, including the chief judge of D.C. Superior Court, Milton C. Lee Jr., and the interim director of the Court Social Services Division, Tamira Roberson, available for interviews. Buchanan issued a written statement that the division 'continues to direct extensive efforts to increasing the safety of youth under our supervision in collaboration with local stakeholders.' In addition to GPS monitoring, the agency conducts home and school visits, facilitates family group conferences, provides tutoring and mentoring services, and does curfew checks in person and by telephone, the statement said. Buchanan suggested that The Post had focused only on cases with tragic outcomes. 'The Court and our staff make rulings and reach difficult decisions every day — and we will continue to do so — as we play our part in helping to pave a path to a brighter future for the District and all of those we serve,' he wrote. The Post asked the spokesman if court officials have any research showing that electronic monitoring improves outcomes in the juvenile justice system. None was provided. A spokeswoman for Securus Monitoring, the company that provided ankle monitors for D.C.'s juvenile court until 2023, said that the technology supports public safety efforts and referred questions to local officials. Lindsey Appiah, the District's deputy mayor for public safety and justice, said she believes GPS can be an effective tool for certain teens, but only when used with extensive safeguards. 'When they violate those conditions, there really does have to be escalating levels of reaction and response and consequence,' said Appiah, whose office has no oversight over the juvenile court system. '... I don't think that it is working the way that it was intended.' As Mylaki and Maurice each walked out of the courthouse in early December 2022, the monitors strapped to their ankles gave them a chance to start anew. It was a familiar gamble of sorts, with court officials relying on the devices to help reform the boys. The stakes, as it turns out, would be life or death. 'To hell and back' How the boys became friends is unclear, but Maurice and Mylaki (pronounced MAL-uh-kai) certainly had much in common: They were both raised by young, single Black mothers in Southeast Washington neighborhoods where gun violence was common. 'The District of Crime,' Brittney Malloy, Maurice's mother, quipped in a Post interview, shaking her head. Neither boy had a close relationship with his father. Maurice's was locked up in 2008, when his son was an infant, and stayed behind bars for all of his son's childhood — first for armed robbery in D.C. and then for murder in Maryland, records show. The identity of Mylaki's father is uncertain, said his mother, Tyshaune Young. Both of the men who possibly fathered him were shot and killed in separate homicides in Southeast Washington, she said. Tyshaune, Mylaki and his little brother stayed at homeless shelters and friends' apartments before securing a housing voucher for an apartment on Savannah Terrace, a stretch of road in Southeast notorious for shootings. The family often heard gunfire. One day, bullets from a drive-by shooting pierced their neighbor's wall. Tyshaune wanted out. In 2018, she and her boys moved into an apartment on Connecticut Avenue in Northwest Washington. 'Mylaki went to hell and back with me,' Tyshaune said of his early years, in an interview with The Post. 'I was a teen mom who took care of my children. Even with or without their fathers, I took care of them.' Tyshaune Young with her son's belongings at her home in the District. 'Mylaki went to hell and back with me,' she said of his early years. (Valerie Plesch/For The Washington Post) At Alice Deal Middle School, teachers praised Mylaki's reading skills. He told his mom he would be the first in his family to go to college. When Mylaki started high school at what became Jackson-Reed in Tenleytown, he made new friends. In 2022, during the spring of his second year, the 15-year-old stayed out hours past the 9:30 p.m. curfew that Tyshaune said she set for him. Sometimes he wouldn't come home at all: 'Literally, my house became an ongoing missing person report,' Tyshaune said. She called the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, which prepared several missing person reports about Mylaki in May, July and September 2022. Each time, after several days away, Mylaki would eventually return home. Mylaki on the steps outside Jackson-Reed High School in D.C.'s Tenleytown neighborhood. (Family photo) Tyshaune said she installed a camera in his bedroom to deter him from climbing out the window. But on Oct. 3, 2022, Mylaki left again. After Oct. 20, he stopped showing up at school. He still answered some calls and texts from family members until Nov. 5, when the 16-year-old cut off communications with Tyshaune. For at least the third time that year, police circulated Mylaki's photo on a 'critical missing person' flier. When Tyshaune wasn't working shifts as a security guard, she tried to find Mylaki herself: scouring the aisles of a CVS where he had been known to hang out, asking her apartment building's front desk staff to keep an eye out and enlisting his brother, now 14, to gather leads from other teens. By mid-November, a prosecutor with the Office of the D.C. Attorney General sought to classify Mylaki as a 'person in need of supervision' under a statute that allows the juvenile court to intervene with habitual runaways. A judge signed an order empowering law enforcement officers who encountered Mylaki to take him into custody. But first, they had to find him. 'One more chance' Maurice also had a bright future that seemingly went missing along with him. He loved football and roller-skating, and as he grew into a young man, he talked of becoming an entrepreneur. But 'as he got older, it got harder,' Brittney said of raising Maurice, her only child. He went to high school at Ron Brown College Preparatory, an all-male D.C. public school a few blocks from the Deanwood Metro station, near the Maryland-D.C. line. When he was a freshman, someone stole his sneakers, Brittney said. Then he was robbed a second time. These robberies seemed to change him, his mother said. At times, Maurice attended classes virtually because of concerns about his safety. Maurice sometimes lived with Brittney, who worked as a hairstylist. At other times, he stayed with one of his grandmothers. Because of his mother's privacy concerns, The Post agreed to withhold most details about Maurice's home life. That includes the family's involvement with the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency, as well as specific crimes he is alleged to have committed, information that is usually kept confidential for juveniles. A necklace Brittney Malloy wears with a photo of her and her son. Maurice loved football and roller-skating and had talked of becoming an entrepreneur, but 'as he got older, it got harder,' Brittney said of raising him. (Valerie Plesch/For The Washington Post) By 2022, the newly turned 15-year-old was spiraling. He had disappeared several times. The longest stretch was six days. Like Mylaki, he was featured on a police flier as a critically missing person. On a Saturday afternoon in October 2022, D.C. police arrested Maurice following an incident in Southwest Washington that resulted in eight criminal charges against him. Hours later, a friend shared on Instagram a photo of Maurice, his face mostly obscured by a black ski mask. 'Free my boy,' the friend wrote. It was Mylaki. The decision of what to do with Maurice rested with Judge Beatty-Arthur. A report filed by the Court Social Services Division recommended that Maurice be sent to a shelter house because of concerns about the risk he posed to public safety. He had fled from police and run away from home and the charges against him were serious, the agency noted. But prosecutors and Maurice's defense attorney jointly recommended that Maurice be released, which allowed them to avoid a hearing over the strength of the evidence. The judge ordered him freed with certain conditions: He must wear a GPS monitor, attend school and follow an around-the-clock curfew with few exceptions. On Oct. 31, 2022, Maurice was 'installed on [electronic monitoring] device #12-736630 and given a charger with instructions,' according to a court record. For a few weeks, his behavior improved. Maurice attended a wedding. His probation officer commended him for being responsive to his calls. A judge then allowed Maurice to have the ankle monitor removed and extended his curfew to 8 p.m. Maurice's compliance soon backtracked. When his probation officer, Ali Eltayeib, tried to reach him for a curfew check, his phone was turned off. At Ron Brown, he had 23 unexcused absences. By early December 2022, Eltayeib's notes reflected a growing sense of urgency to rein in Maurice, who had been missing for several days. The officer began drafting documents to try to bring Maurice back before a judge. Then, Maurice finally spoke to Eltayeib by phone, asking for 'one more chance.' The officer agreed, albeit with considerable hesitation. There would be 'no more chances after that,' Eltayeib warned Maurice late on the evening of Dec. 5. Around dawn on Dec. 7, officers from the Metropolitan Police Department's Violent Crime Impact Team and detectives from the Carjacking Task Force raided a third-floor apartment on Good Hope Court SE. The adult son of an elderly neighbor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of safety concerns, described the early-morning commotion as officers led out seven boys, one by one. They ranged in age from 13 to 16, records show. Mylaki and Maurice were among them. The apartment By official accounts, the boys were often missing. In reality, they weren't exactly hiding. Like many teens, they broadcast the minutiae of their daily lives on social media. In late 2022, videos posted to Instagram showed Mylaki, Maurice and other teen boys inside the dirty apartment. There, they slept on mattresses on the floor, smoked marijuana and cooked corn dogs on an electric hot plate. Maurice and Mylaki gained access to the vacant property near the Anacostia neighborhood through a friend's aunt. In a brief interview with The Post, the woman, Rylinda Rhodes, confirmed she had allowed her nephew and his friends to stay there for about a month. 'I wanted them to have a safe place,' said Rhodes, who described herself as a local business owner and anti-gun-violence advocate. '... Unfortunately, that didn't work out well.' Police narrowed in on the apartment while investigating a string of violent crimes. The previous night, an Uber Eats driver had dropped off food at a residence near the Hillcrest neighborhood of Southeast Washington. When the driver returned to his car, a blue Toyota Corolla, he later told police, a man holding a semiautomatic handgun knocked on his window. Then, three more people swarmed the other side of his car, rapping on his windows and telling him to get out. At gunpoint, the driver handed over his keys and watched as the perpetrators drove off in his car. The following morning, during the raid of the apartment where Mylaki and Maurice were staying, police said, they found one of the boys' friends sitting on the stolen Corolla key. Another boy in the group had Audi and Infiniti keys dangling from his belt loop. Police also recovered a 9mm black ghost gun, a firearm assembled from parts purchased online, in a bedroom closet. In the living room, they found a red ghost gun with a manufacturing kit and a drill. And — in what appeared to be a jury-rigged attempt to imitate a rifle — a tactical-style flashlight had been taped to a cane. Loose ammunition was scattered around the apartment. Neither Mylaki nor Maurice was alleged to have participated in the carjacking of the Uber Eats driver. But police claimed in their reports that some of the boys within the apartment, including Mylaki, were tied to other crimes. A photo Tyshaune Young took of her son so that she could retrieve his belongings from a detention center after an apartment raid that led to his arrest. She says the photo haunts her in hindsight because of Mylaki's expression. (Tyshaune Young) A month earlier, police said, several boys had stolen a Hyundai Elantra and used it to commit separate armed robberies of two high school students in Northeast Washington near H.D. Woodson High School and KIPP DC College Preparatory. The assailants struck the two victims with a handgun, according to police reports, injuring their faces and taking their sneakers, cellphones, a Canada Goose jacket, Blistex lip balm and a bottle of Gatorade. Police alleged that Mylaki's sneakers matched those of a perpetrator in surveillance footage from after the robberies. They arrested him on charges of unauthorized use of a vehicle, two counts of armed robbery and possession of an unregistered firearm and ammunition, according to records. Maurice, too, was arrested following the apartment raid. Both boys were taken to the city's juvenile detention center to wait for their initial appearances in court. The next day, on Dec. 8, 2022, each boy got a big break: the Office of the Attorney General, which decides whether to prosecute juvenile offenses in the District, declined to pursue criminal charges against Maurice or Mylaki. 'Prosecutors can only charge what they can prove,' a spokesman for the office said in a written statement. 'OAG charges every serious offense, especially gun offenses, when we have the evidence to prove the case in court.' In response, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Department stated that while confidentiality laws prohibit commenting on specific juvenile arrests, 'all MPD arrests are made with probable cause.' Device #22-014087 Maurice was refitted with an ankle monitor, given a charger and released. Device #22-014087 was his second monitor in less than a month. Though he avoided new criminal charges after the apartment raid, he was still under court supervision for his earlier criminal case. 'Maurice explained himself and indicated a lot of the incidents were all taken out of context / wrong place wrong time / or just coincidence,' Eltayeib, his probation officer, wrote. School staff at Ron Brown described him as disruptive and troublesome and said they feared that he would 'be seen on the news' if his behavior did not change. Maurice's mother texted Eltayeib that if her son was killed on the street, 'I'll place some of the blame on you. I get a call everyday saying he's not in school. … he's still outside with the box on.' Eltayeib replied that he 'is always watching the youth's tracker.' One night in mid-December, Eltayeib called Maurice for his 8 p.m. curfew check. There was no answer. Maurice's GPS data placed him in District Heights, Maryland. Later that night, Eltayeib received a phone call from a Prince George's County police officer. Maurice had been arrested during a traffic stop and was facing several criminal charges. 'I told him it would probably be safest if he was not released, to prevent him from running away,' Eltayeib said he told police. Prince George's authorities held Maurice at the Cheltenham Youth Detention Center for several weeks. He turned 16 during his stay. Before sending him home in mid-January, Maryland officials cut off his D.C. ankle monitor and installed their own GPS device as his case there was pending. It was the third ankle monitor he had worn in as many months. GPS device was a point of contention, texts show Maurice's mother, Brittney Malloy, and his D.C. probation officer, Ali Eltayeib, texted about Maurice's ankle monitor after he was rearrested, according to Eltayeib's notes. 12/20/2022 Text message sent to Brittany Malloy: 'Good morning. Yes I was monitoring Maurice's box . That is how I saw he was on Maryland as I approached the home for curfews. He was arrested there last night and detained ████████████████████████████.' A.E. 12/20/2022 Text message received from Ms. Brittany Malloy: 'Hes been outside Your not doing your job Had u been doing your he wouldn't even be there' A.E. This excerpt was quoted as it was written, including a misspelling of Brittney Malloy's name. The Post has highlighted a reference to Maurice's 'box,' which is slang for an ankle monitor, and has redacted details about confidential juvenile criminal charges. Joyriding Though Mylaki faced no criminal charges, he was upset to learn that he still had to go to court. Prosecutors alleged he was a habitual runaway, defining him as a 'person in need of supervision,' or PINS, for short. In the past, D.C. judges could send these young people to secure detention, but that practice drew the ire of lawmakers and advocates who contended that incarceration drives youths further into the justice system. A D.C. law enacted in 2017 barred the practice. Beatty-Arthur, the judge, had limited options. She could have sent Mylaki to a shelter-care facility, which offers a safe, structured environment but is not considered secure detention. Instead, against the recommendation of a probation officer — who described Mylaki as a 'flight risk' and recommended a shelter-care facility — she sent him home to his mother on an ankle monitor. Tyshaune knew the law's limits but felt frustrated that her son was not facing consequences. If Mylaki did what the police alleged, 'he should have been locked up,' she told The Post. After the hearing, Mylaki and Tyshaune met an officer from the Court Social Services Division to discuss the rules. Mylaki needed to be home by 6 every night. There could be fines if he lost his charger or cut off the monitor, and he would need to avoid baths, which could damage the device. Mylaki repeated the rules back to the officer: 'I can't tamper with it. I can't cut it off.' Then, Tyshaune said, her son gave a sly smile. The officer told him that it was not a joke. Over a week later, a friend from school, Mckenzie Crawford, was scrolling through Instagram when she saw that Mylaki had posted a photo. It alluded to stealing cars, she said. Crawford angrily messaged him, writing that 'all y'all do is sell weed and get cars.' She asked Mylaki to consider the victims — parents 'working all day n night' to be able to afford a car. 'Y'all don't know what y'all [are] doing, for real,' she wrote to Mylaki on Dec. 18, 2022. '… It's most likely not [gonna] end good.' By Jan. 4, 2023, his monitor's battery had died, records show. On Jan. 10, he missed his scheduled court date, and Judge Robert Salerno issued a custody order seeking to bring him back to court. With a dead GPS battery, teen goes missing Excerpts from D.C. juvenile court records show how officials lost track of Mylaki in January 2023, just weeks after he was released on an ankle monitor. 1/11/2023 10:00 AM Curfew 6pm Electronic Monitoring YES Substance Usage MARIJUANA overall adjustment POOR The youth came under this writer's supervision for habitual runaway. While the youth is briefly before the Court, he started with compliance during the first week. However since that first week the youth has been in complete non compliance. The youth is on electronic monitoring, but his device is currently not charged. His whereabouts are unable to be tracked. The youth is currently not attending school daily. The youth consumes marijuana daily. Also at thsi time the youth is known to travel around the city in stolen cars. The custody order is outstanding, and his whereabouts are unknown. This excerpt was quoted as it was written. The Post has highlighted notes that refer to GPS monitoring. 'The youth is joyriding around town in stolen cars,' according to notes in Mylaki's court file. '… The youth is on electronic monitoring but his device is currently not charged. His whereabouts are unable to be tracked.' Mylaki's new probation officer, Nathan Johnson, searched for him at school, visited his apartment building and tried to call him — all with no luck. By Feb. 6, Mylaki's GPS monitor had been dead for so long — over 33 days — that the Court Social Services Division marked it 'terminated.' Three days later, Tyshaune heard a knock on the door in the late evening. Mylaki had come home. 'I guess this is becoming the norm for you,' Tyshaune said she told him. 'What?' he asked. 'Running away,' she answered. He showered, ate dinner and went to sleep. In the morning, she notified law enforcement. Officers allowed her to drape a jacket over Mylaki's handcuffed wrists before they walked him to the police car. Fearing for their lives The trouble that Mylaki and Maurice had begun to get into in 2022 carried over well into 2023, a year in which the highest rates of juvenile crime in more than a generation would grip the District. The boys could not escape it, but rather came to embody the crisis. Maurice — back in the District after his stint in custody in Maryland — needed a new D.C. ankle monitor. Eltayeib, his probation officer, installed it 'on the right ankle because the youth had a [Maryland] device on the left ankle,' according to his notes. For a brief time, Maurice was double-boxed. Still, he was feeling unsafe. Maurice showed up to a curfew check with a bruised face. During another conversation, he told his officer he was scared to go to school after someone attempted to shoot his 'opps,' street slang for an opposing crew. 'Maurice was reminded that his life is more valuable than he thinks,' Eltayeib wrote, advising him to stay indoors. A judge had sent Mylaki to a shelter-care facility after his mother turned him in. He stayed there for several weeks before being released, again wearing an ankle monitor. Now, he held similar fears as his friend Maurice. When a probation officer attempted to take Mylaki to a basketball court, the teen 'explained he had to remain in the car due to neighborhood concerns.' Later, he requested that the officer drop him off at home last because he feared 'other youths would see where he lives.' In early March 2023, Mylaki underwent a 'psychoeducational' evaluation at the courthouse, to help identify any mental health conditions or a need for counseling, mentoring or job resources. Help us report on D.C.'s response to youth crime The Washington Post wants to hear from people affected by or with knowledge of the District's juvenile justice system and the city's efforts to prevent and address youth crime. Have a tip? Reach our team using this submission form. Previous Next Mylaki was polite and friendly, the interviewer noted. He said he used marijuana daily and had tried codeine, a substance that users sometimes mix with soda to feel high. During the evaluation, he appeared drowsy and nodded off for 15 minutes. The boy who had once boasted to family that he would attend college 'did not report any future goals after high school and did not show concerns or a desire to earn his high school diploma.' Although Mylaki was in his third year at Jackson-Reed, he was so far behind that he was classified as a freshman. He remarked that he had lost several friends to gun violence but shrugged it off as an everyday occurrence, repeating a cautionary phrase he learned from his mom: 'Bullets don't name names.' A week after the evaluation, Mylaki went missing again. His probation officer drafted and submitted a custody order seeking to bring him back before a judge. On March 28, Mylaki attended a court hearing through a virtual meeting platform. Tyshaune also watched online as her son appeared on a video screen from a room in a house that she did not recognize. Judge Salerno directed the teen to contact his defense attorney and turn himself in. After the hearing, Tyshaune and Mylaki briefly talked to each other through their screens. She told him that she loved him. 'I love you too, Mom,' he said, before ending the call. His GPS battery died the next day. Days later, Mylaki's probation officer emailed Lydia Wade, his defense attorney. 'I was just checking to see if you have heard from the youth since the hearing?' Johnson wrote to Wade on April 3. She hadn't: 'Where is he?' Shots fired In the early-morning hours of Friday, April 14, 2023, Mylaki was about four miles away from his mother's home, where he was supposed to be under a strict curfew. Instead, he was with friends at LeDroit Park, cleaning up after a cookout, when a car drove by and its occupants began shooting, witnesses would later tell Tyshaune. A gunfire detection system captured 13 rounds of gunfire fired on V Street NW at 2:45 a.m. Two minutes later, at 2:47 a.m., police responded to find that a teen had been shot. Mylaki was pronounced dead at 3:15 a.m. at a hospital. His mother later went to the medical examiner's office and listened as an employee explained the process for identifying the body of a loved one. She would hand Tyshaune a manila folder, and inside there would be a photo of a deceased young man. Tyshaune would need to confirm that it was Mylaki. 'Please let it be someone else,' Tyshaune prayed. But when she opened the folder, she saw the face of her firstborn son. He looked as if he were asleep. She screamed and then sobbed. Days before death, teen's whereabouts unknown Mylaki had not charged his ankle monitor for more than two weeks before he was killed on April 14, records show. 4/12/2023 5:56 PM EM device alerts emailed to PO Johnson. Device currently dead and has not called in since 3/28. 4/13/2023 10:04 AM The youth's custody order remains outstanding. 4/13/2023 10:12 AM Good morning, Thank you for this update the youth currently is out on an active custody order please make me aware if the youth comes back online. Thank you. 4/14/2023 10:34 AM The youth's custody order remains outstanding. 4/14/2023 10:35 AM The youth had not returned home and is still in abscondence. 4/14/2023 10:41 AM This writer spoke to Ms. Young she reported that the youth was shot on REED street last night. This writer attempted to counsel the youth. This excerpt was quoted as it was written. The sequencing was reordered for clarity. The Post has highlighted notes from officials about their lack of awareness of Mylaki's whereabouts during his final days. The autopsy reported that a bullet entered the right side of Mylaki's abdomen, ripping through his bowels, tearing an artery and shattering his pelvis on its way out of his left hip. The report included other details, like the teen's sparse facial hair and a piercing in his left earlobe. And then a description from the deputy medical examiner: 'A black electronic monitor with the serial number '22-065474' encircles the left ankle.' Officials updated Mylaki's court records to state that he was the victim of a homicide. VeriTraks, a software platform for the GPS vendor, Securus Monitoring, asked court employees for help retrieving the ankle monitor from the medical examiner's office. One of the final entries in Mylaki's case file states: 'Device 22-065474 will be terminated from this youth at this time.' Mylaki's grave site at Rock Creek Cemetery. (Valerie Plesch/For The Washington Post) 'You need to charge it ASAP' Maurice, who had worn a monitor on each ankle, had been offered a path out of the juvenile justice system in the weeks before his friend's death. In Maryland, officials agreed to dispose of his charges after six months of probation. In D.C., he pleaded guilty to two charges from his October 2022 arrest, and in exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop the remaining charges. The deal required that he complete 20 hours of community service, follow court orders and stay out of trouble through the end of 2023. But days after a D.C. judge signed the agreement, Maurice began breaking curfew and missing school. GPS data showed he had been all over the city. 'Maurice continues to remain 'out and about' despite verbalizing feeling unsafe,' Eltayeib wrote on April 5, 2023. After Mylaki was shot and killed, Maurice wore a black sweatshirt printed with photos of his friend. Following a move from his grandmother's house to live with Brittney again, Maurice received a new probation officer, Carlos Bernal. Over a weekend in June, Maurice stayed out one Saturday night and did not come home. Brittney texted Bernal to ask him to help find Maurice by checking his GPS data. 'Ms. Malloy, I do not generally work during the weekend,' the officer responded on Monday. 'But I can check his device now. So he did not return all weekend?' He then texted Maurice about his dead GPS monitor: 'You need to charge it ASAP.' Over the summer, Maurice sometimes failed to answer calls for his curfew checks, missed an office visit with Bernal and was admonished for losing the charger for his ankle monitor. In August 2023, D.C. police arrested Maurice again. He was charged with 11 criminal offenses that authorities alleged he committed from the previous March to May. Maurice was 'very upset he was being named for something he was adamant he had no parts of,' his probation officer noted. The Office of the Attorney General and the Court Social Services Division recommended that Maurice be held in the city's juvenile detention center. Judge Sherry Trafford instead released Maurice on an ankle monitor. By then, he had worn a GPS device much of the previous 10 months. Maurice Jackson and Judge Sherry Trafford signed a document on Aug. 14, 2023, agreeing to the terms of his release following another rearrest. Maurice was ordered to wear a GPS monitor. The bolding of Maurice's name was added by The Post. (Document obtained by The Washington Post) Maurice soon enrolled at Dunbar High School in the Truxton Circle neighborhood of Northwest. He missed classes, sometimes at his mother's urging, because she worried he could be in danger, Brittney said. Other times, Maurice went to school anyway. On Sept. 26, 2023, a doorbell camera recorded him leaving their apartment. 'Sorry, Ma,' he said to the camera. 'I'm going to school.' He smiled, waved and walked away. After classes ended for the day, Maurice was among a crowd of boys on New Jersey Avenue NW, a couple of blocks from the school. Surveillance footage shows two groups converging and then suddenly scurrying in different directions. Maurice sprints and then staggers across the street, flagging down a crossing guard for help. He had been shot. At 4:15 p.m., he was pronounced dead at a hospital. His autopsy report revealed that he sustained two gunshot wounds. One bullet entered his right leg, while the other traveled through the left side of his chest and pierced his lung and heart, killing him. 'A black ankle monitor is around the left leg,' the deputy medical examiner noted. In a final report written after Maurice's death, his probation officer presented a favorable picture of his behavior. 'Maurice was compliant with his [electronic monitoring] protocol,' wrote Bernal. 'Also responded quickly to any issues with the device.' Bernal did not respond to The Post's request for comment, including about why he concluded that Maurice had followed the rules despite his history of violations. Meanwhile, in a group chat on Instagram, one of Maurice's friends shared a grim realization. 'I just thought about it,' the boy wrote. Maurice 'never got to get off da box.' Brittney Malloy speaks during a dinner and ceremony she called the 'First Annual Blue Tie Affair' in honor of Maurice. (Valerie Plesch/For The Washington Post) Epilogue About two months after Maurice's death, the Court Social Services Division ended its years-long contract with Securus Monitoring, the brand name of the company that provided the GPS ankle monitors worn by juveniles in the D.C. court system. Securus has touted its BLUtag GPS monitors as 'the industry standard.' But D.C. court officials grew concerned that a battery that took two hours to fully charge lasted only 48 hours. In 2023, they began looking for a monitor with a longer battery life and contracted with Sentinel, the company that provides the Omnilink OM500 monitor. Buchanan, the court spokesman, said the new monitors offer a one-hour charge for a five-day battery life, the ability to program geographic boundaries known as exclusion zones and 'enhanced command features including vibration, beeping and siren alerts.' The spokesman declined to disclose how much money had been spent on GPS devices. The court's reliance on ankle monitors was raised during a May 2024 community forum in Southeast Washington, where several local officials gathered to discuss the challenges of supervising young offenders. 'There were some limitations,' said Odom, who was still the director of the Court Social Services Division, of her agency's use of the devices. Then, she issued a mea culpa on juvenile deaths. 'Let me say this: We acknowledge that it was a failure. That five of our young people whose lives were cut short had our equipment on, equipment issued by the court,' she said. Odom, seemingly, was referring to previous remarks from D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) that five young people wearing ankle monitors died from September to October 2023. The court spokesman declined to answer questions about who was counted in the death toll and how many of the youths were wearing ankle monitors with dead batteries at the time of their deaths. At the forum, Odom acknowledged the limited battery life of the ankle monitors that D.C. had relied on for years. 'Two days is just simply not enough,' she said. Still, she said that longer-lasting batteries would not have deterred teens from making decisions that put them at risk. 'Again, any loss of a young person's life is painful. It's regretful,' Odom said at the forum. '... But I will say that out of that, there was a great commitment that emerged, and we have retooled how we operate and the use of the equipment.' No one has been arrested in the killings of Mylaki and Maurice. Then-acting D.C. police chief Pamela A. Smith briefs reporters on two homicides, including Maurice's, that happened on Sept. 26, 2023. (Peter Hermann/The Washington Post) Police believe a 14-year-old boy shot and killed Mylaki as part of a feud between two neighborhood groups, according to investigative details shared by a D.C. detective with Tyshaune. A teen boy who was friends with Mylaki then shot and killed the 14-year-old in retaliation, the detective told her. The other occupants of the car thought to be involved in Mylaki's shooting have not been apprehended. A Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson said Mylaki's homicide investigation remains active, with a $25,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction. Maurice's homicide was ruled administratively closed by police after the U.S. attorney's office declined to prosecute the case, according to the MPD spokesperson. During a July 2024 phone call with Brittney, a prosecutor said evidence showed that Maurice had planned to commit a robbery and that the person who killed him did so in self-defense. When police found Maurice, he had no gun in his possession, the prosecutor told her. * * * Brittney buried Maurice in Rock Creek Cemetery, the oldest in Washington. For months after his October 2023 burial, she saved money to buy a custom marker for his plot. Last summer, she drove to the cemetery with a shovel, a hoe and a headstone rimmed with Maurice's favorite color, blue. The sun beat down on her forehead as she anchored the stone in the earth. Brittney motioned down the row to the grave site of a 16-year-old boy. Mylaki Young. He was buried three plots over. By chance, just a few feet separated the bodies of the boys who had once been friends. Brittney Malloy, left, visits her son's grave site with a friend. Maurice was buried just three plots over from his friend Mylaki at Rock Creek Cemetery. (Valerie Plesch/For The Washington Post)
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Josh Duggar denied legal counsel for post-conviction challenge
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — Former reality TV star Josh Duggar's request for a court-appointed attorney to help him challenge his 2021 child sexual abuse material (CSAM) conviction has been denied, according to court documents. Duggar, 37, filed a motion without an attorney in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas on May 27. 'The defendant requests counsel for the limited purpose of reviewing the record, evaluating possible constitutional claims, and, if meritorious grounds exist, preparing and filing a motion,' Duggar wrote in the seven-page filing. In an order filed Thursday, June 5, U.S. Magistrate Judge Christy Comstock said Duggar's motion to appoint counsel lacked sufficient detail and failed to justify the request under federal law. 2nd Milk president allowed to travel for fishing trips, court docs say Under 18 U.S.C. § 3006A, courts have discretion to appoint counsel in certain post-conviction cases, but only if the petition presents a nonfrivolous claim and other factors, such as legal or factual complexity, warrant assistance. The judge found that those standards were not met in Duggar's case. Duggar had previously stated he cannot afford a lawyer on his own due to his incarceration. Former 19 Kids and Counting star Josh Duggar was convicted of child pornography possession in December 2021 and sentenced in May 2022. He received over 12 years in prison, 20 years of supervised release, and a $10,000 fine. His appeals were later rejected by both a federal court in 2023 and the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Bloomberg
15 hours ago
- Bloomberg
BlackRock, Vanguard Fight High-Stakes Collusion Case in Texas
The world's largest asset managers are heading to court over a lawsuit brought by Republican state attorneys general claiming they colluded to reduce coal output, in a case that threatens how US firms oversee trillions of dollars. Lawyers for BlackRock Inc., Vanguard Group Inc. and the asset management arm of State Street Corp. are set to urge a federal judge at a hearing on Monday to dismiss the lawsuit, which claims the firms coordinated to pressure coal producers to reduce their output. The firms have large stakes in coal producers and profited when energy prices soared, according to the suit, which claims the firms used environmental goals as cover.
