Juvenile court Judge Alex Kim’s controversial YouTube videos

Judge Alex Kim insisted the 12-year-old boy reveal the names of two adults who gave him guns and marijuana while the child’s criminal hearing was broadcast live on YouTube, with thousands of people tuning in from across the country. “I’m requiring a full confession on this,” Kim told the boy in a Tarrant County juvenile court hearing in 2020. Kim also told the boy that if he didn’t give up the names, he would be taken off the list for probation and would be sent to a state detention facility. And if Kim later found out that the boy had lied, the judge threatened to revoke probation. After much coaxing, the boy mumbled the names to Kim. Some of the 7,000 anonymous viewers posted comments on the video’s public chat, calling the boy a snitch. “They gone kick his door in,” one viewer said.

After the hearing’s broadcast, men who were connected with the two people the boy named showed up at the child’s house where his grandfather lived. No one was hurt. The episode is one of a dozen instances where local attorneys and juvenile justice advocates have questioned how Kim runs Tarrant County’s 323rd Juvenile Court, which he has overseen since winning his first election in 2018. It also illustrates Kim’s unorthodox methods from the bench — sometimes akin to reality TV — which had gotten little attention before this summer, when persistent overcrowding at the juvenile detention center led to more scrutiny of his court. All judges used livestreaming when the pandemic halted in-person gatherings, but Kim continued to use it long after courthouses reopened. And unlike other judges, he left his juvenile hearing videos on his YouTube channel, where they racked up more than 1 million views and made him into a sort of judicial celebrity in online forums, including one where racism appears rampant. Kim has said repeatedly said he is the final authority in his courtroom, and he cannot take suggestions or recommendations from outsiders or other county judges. But the problems that have contributed to overcrowding in juvenile detention are putting public pressure on Tarrant County leaders to do something about it.