Judge Lance Moriarty has jailed and fined 17-year-old Diana Tran, an honors student, for truancy. Trans takes advanced placement and dual credit college-level courses. She works full-time at a dry cleaners and, on the weekends, at a wedding venue, the Vineyard of Waverly Manor, all to help support a baby sister who lives with relatives in Houston and an older brother who attends Texas A & M University. Her parents, as KHOU News reports, divorced "out of the blue" and her mother now lives in Georgia.
Due to working full-time while being a full-time student -- and being exhausted -- Tran has come late to class, often after attendance is taken, or missed class altogether. Last month, she ended up in the Justice of the Peace truancy court, where Judge Moriarty warned her to stop missing school. But after she again recently missed classes, Judge Moriarty had her arrested in open court, ordered her to spend 24 hours in jail and fined her $200.
Of course Tran needs to attend school. But jailing her -- resulting in a criminal record -- is the wrong approach and the judge's sentence must be reversed.