Judge Refuses to Release 14-Year-Old Girl Accused of Hateful Death Threats as Her Lawyer Claims She’s in Danger

A week ago the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest and posted the mugshot of L.H., a 14-year-old Palm Coast girl, on a charge of transmitting death threats to at least two classmates at her former school in Ohio, with a hate crime enhancement. She had laced the threats in homophobic slurs. Since then, the Facebook post has drawn over 900 comments and 750 shares.

According to the girl’s attorney, it has prompted the girl’s family to ask for extra patrol after the family allegedly got death threats (FlaglerLive couldn’t verify whether there’s been increased sheriff’s patrols in the girl’s neighborhood in Seminole Woods), while the girl herself, jailed at a youth facility in Daytona Beach since, has felt unsafe and threatened by juveniles there as well.




Today, the girl’s attorney, Josh Davis, asked County Judge Melissa Distler in a hearing to release the girl back to her parents. Attending from jail by zoom, the girl sobbed almost the whole time (she was muted and di not address the court). The judge declined to release her, but set a hearing next week to consider Davis’s claims that the girl is in danger, and re-evaluate her detention status. But Distler made clear that she expects any claims of danger to be documented.

Today’s hearing also revealed that the girl isn’t facing only one charge. When she was arrested last week, she violated two probation sentences stemming from two previous, and relatively recent, charges of battery. She was no longer attending regular school because of her behavioral issues. She had been attending Rise Up, the Flagler County school district’s alternative school. Davis will be representing the girl on the probation violations as well.

L.H. was scheduled to be in what’s referred to as “secure detention” (meaning youth jail) until Feb. 14. Assistant State Attorney Kristin DePaula requested an extension at least to Feb. 24. The Department of Juvenile Justice this morning issued an amended recommendation in her case: to place her in in-patient care, underscoring the girl’s apparent mental health issues.

“I’m not saying the state would even be amenable to offering or agreeing to that, but I would give them the opportunity to do so,” DePaula said. “However, we have a youth who was just put on supervision [that is, probation] and then picked up this new charge. So at this point again we would be asking that she remained in secure detention.”




Davis did not contest the state’s summary. But he referred to the Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook post as the reason she’s “facing threats and physical altercations, violence, etc., due to all of this that’s happened,” he said. (Numerous Central Florida news organizations have disseminated the mugshot, the girl’s name and address based on the sheriff’s release. FlaglerLive reported the arrest last week but without naming the girl or posting her picture.)

“I understand the state’s position, Judge. And I just hope you all understand mine,” Davis, who has often represented juveniles facing charges similar to L.H.’s, told the court. “Normally, this is something that is just part of procedure. But due to nothing that any of us have done, we have this case now that’s just exploded. And with the name and the picture of a child who just turned 14 and the danger that she’s facing in there, I would ask the court to consider at least Miss [L/H.] being able to be to go back home, even if on secure detention, judge, whatever it requires. I just don’t believe the child is safe at this time.”

“You think she’s less safe in detention than she would be at home?” Distler, who held court by zoom from Tallahassee, asked.

“Yes ma’am,” Davis said.

“Why?”

“The comments that were made–allegedly–, the groups that were mentioned in that statement, make up an extremely large percentage of the place where Miss [L.H.] is being held at this time,” Davis said.




“Has there been any allegation of any issues since she’s been there?” the judge asked. Davis said there had, and that she could ask the girl. Distler wasn’t interested in more allegations. She wanted documents. “If there is something that I need to know about in making a decision, whether or not to keep her in secured attention, then I want to see whatever it is. If there are reports that have been filed, or if there’s some photographic proof of something that’s happened to her while she’s been in detention, then of course I want to know about it.”

Because of the circumstances–the judge in Tallahassee, Davis toggling two simultaneous hearings–Distler set next week hearing to have more time to go over the allegations. (Davis was arguing before Judge Dawn Nichols in felony court on a stand your ground motion at the very same time: Nichols granted a recess so he could appear before Distler.)

“She was just placed on supervision,” the judge continued. On another case, “she literally got dispoed on it January 6, and then within two weeks, she’s essentially exhibiting the same behavior again. It’s going to take a lot for you to convince me that she should be released. So if you have proof of something that’s going on down there, then I will certainly look at it.”

He had no proof. The state had no information about what Davis was alluding to. “I’ve not been contacted by detention at all,” DePaula, the prosecutor, said.

“I certainly don’t want a youth to be harmed by themselves or someone else while they’re in detention,” Distler said. “That is obviously all of our worst case scenario. So we will all do everything in our power to keep that from happening.” But there would be no release today. The girl, the judge told Davis, “needs some intervention. I’m not sure exactly what that looks like, and obviously Ms. DePaula was not sure what it looks like either. It’s giving you and DJJ the opportunity to present some solutions to us, but obviously, for being placed on probation is not the solution. So it sounds like you’ve got some work to do.”