If he went forward with the hearing, put up an argument, he could end up with more than that-as many as eighteen years. If he didn't fight the bind over and transferred to adult prison, he'd get nine years. Then again, ODYS prisons don't really spin on an axis of right and wrong. So he created alliances where he could, dominated where he could, took advantage where he could, sought protection where he could. The most powerful gang in juvenile prison was after him. Like a lot of kids inside ODYS, he was both. Joshua wasn't only a victim, nor was he only a perpetrator. When I put the two reports side by side, what I saw was the raggedy, morally compromised chronicle of a kid at war. But in a statement, they reiterated that they do investigate allegations of misconduct and take action when necessary. They don't participate in stories about specific youth. She called Joshua, honey.Īgain, I couldn't interview anyone at ODYS on the record. The one time I visited Indian River, I met this same guard in passing, and she confirmed it. But there it was in the request to invoke.Īnother incident on the list sounded as if Joshua had caused a guard to get hurt during a fight.
He said she apologized later, and they were cool after that. Joshua told me that was because the guard discussed his case in front of other kids, saying snitches get stitches. Joshua did throw a video game remote a guard, for instance. He gets mad sometimes, she said, but usually for a legitimate reason. Not even on the radar in terms of major threats inside the facility. An ODYS guard who'd known Joshua for a couple of years, she told me, overall, not a troublemaker.
And they said, it's not great, but yeah, for a kid who's been in there three years, it's not exceptional. I ran the list of Joshua's offenses by people who've either worked in ODYS or worked on behalf of kids inside ODYS. The day before, the same kid had assaulted Joshua and threw pee on him. Yes indeed, Joshua did throw pee at a kid on March 27. There were a few sequences like this-tit for tats in which only the tat was included in the request to invoke his SYO. February second, that same kid walked up to Joshua at the water fountain and punched him in the face. What's missing is February second, which you can see on that internal report. In the request to invoke, there's an assault-when Joshua hit a kid on February third. And when I cross-referenced the request to invoke Joshua's SYO with that internal ODYS report, I realized, oh, these aren't isolated incidents. The summary at the end extensive-sixteen fights, six menacing threats, twenty-one disruptive behaviors, et cetera.īut I have another report-an internal ODYS report-that documents every incident involving Joshua, whether as victim or aggressor, for almost all his time in ODYS custody. I had that anxious jolt of, hold up, have I completely misunderstood who this person is? The list looked bad. I've got to say, I was taken aback by the list. The kid wasn't jumped, but still, the prosecutors considered it a serious threat. Apparently, Joshua had put out a hit on another kid, which usually means arranging for other kids to jump someone. I'd later find out the incident that triggered the motion to invoke. He'd thrown a remote control at a female guard. Then there was a list of about a dozen specific incidents just from the past six months-assaults, fights, disruptive behaviors.
The motion claimed that Joshua created a substantial risk to the safety or security of the institution, that despite all the therapeutic programming Joshua had completed, he consistently chooses to make criminal decisions. It had been filed by the county prosecutor's office at the request of the juvenile prison, Indian River. Spoke to Joshua almost every day, sometimes twice a day, for a year and a half, so that the story of Joshua would exist not for posterity's sake, but for the sake of straight up fairness.įirst thing I wanted to know-why Joshua? What was ODYS saying he'd done that made them want to eject him from their facilities and put him into the adult system? I got a copy of the motion to invoke Joshua's SYO.
#Serial podcast episode 9 summary how to
I did what I know how to do-I reported out every beat of this sucker, every turn. After all he'd risked for law enforcement, after all the beat downs he'd absorbed-a nineteen-year-old kid. I could not fathom that the state would give up on him. Out of all the cases we watched, Joshua's got to me most. But I happen to be the one on the phone right now. Certainly not my job to tell him when to go to bed.
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