
Send us a textJudge Kim Taylor shares her journey as a pioneering female judge and mother of a son with autism, revealing how personal experience fueled her advocacy for autism awareness in the criminal justice system. Her work began after learning about Sidney Templeton, a young man with autism who died in police custody due to officers' lack of understanding about his condition.• First woman elected as district court judge in Alexander-Iredell-Davie County in 1986• Created a task force that made autism training mandatory for North Carolina law enforcement• Developed educational resources including "Autism in the Criminal Justice System" video• Expanded advocacy through "Safe and Sound" committee with the Autism Society of America• Advocating for national legislation for more uniform autism training across jurisdictions• Emphasizes prevention and diversion programs over incarceration for those with autism• Identifies the need for compassion and understanding in the legal system• Won her initial election by just 75 votes across four counties• Highlights how perspective changes when issues affect someone personallyTell everyone everywhere about Why Not Me: The World, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone everywhere that you are not alone in this world.https://tonymantor.comhttps://Facebook.com/tonymantorhttps://instagram.com/tonymantorhttps://twitter.com/tonymantorhttps://youtube.com/tonymantormusicintro/outro music bed written by T. WildWhy Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
Chapter 1: What inspired Judge Kim Taylor to advocate for autism awareness?
Can you tell us how you came to help autistic people when they came in front of you during your sessions at court?
Chapter 2: How did Judge Taylor's personal experiences shape her judicial career?
Well, I was elected district court judge in Alexander, Davia, Davidson counties in 1986. At that time, I had one child who did not have autism. In 1987, my second child was born. His name is Garrett and he was born in April of 87. We hadn't heard much about what autism was at that point. So we're just trying to find resources and try to figure out what help he needed and how he was
going to be as he grew older. We did the hearing test, neurological test and such, and eventually an organization called TEACH, it's T-E-A-C-C-H, which is part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, did testing and told us that he had autism. And of course, this is around age three. So at that point, we tried to get some school resources in place.
There weren't any resources in Alexander County, North Carolina at the time. But I have a sister-in-law who was director of exceptional children's programs, and she was able to get some things in place. Now, of course, we have a lot more people on the spectrum, and they have classrooms for people with autism. As he grew older, he became eventually self-injurious.
Around the age of 11, he started hitting himself, hurting himself a lot. I would be called from the bench, and you got to come get him from school. He'd hit himself, and, you know, it was just pretty terrible. I continued on the bench. I can't recall if I was in Superior District. I think I was a Superior Court judge at the time.
Chapter 3: What happened to Sidney Templeton and why is it significant?
My husband was working as a deputy sheriff in Iredell County and told me after his work shift that he believed someone with autism had died in police custody.
Wow, that's pretty serious. What'd you find out?
We were very concerned, upset about it, and we got the details of what happened. His name was Sidney Templeton. He was in his early 20s and had a caregiver in Statesville, North Carolina. And apparently he had a meltdown with the caregiver because They thought because his medication had been changed or something had happened in his environment that caused him to have a meltdown. She called 911.
Chapter 4: What initiatives has Judge Taylor implemented for law enforcement training?
Officers went out, didn't understand. She told them, we believe at the scene, she told them that he was autistic and couldn't speak, but they didn't know what autism was. They thought, in fact, somebody told us that they thought she said autistic.
We thought then, well, we've got to do something to educate our responders, law enforcement, people that might run into our kids and not know what's going on with them. So we were able to get a task force together involving law enforcement. We had people from the Autism Society. We had district attorneys. We had a broad range of people, really.
that were willing to work with us, and we were able to get a joint task force with the North Carolina legislature, who we met periodically, you know, and had presentations from various interested parties, and were able to develop some plans and some changes that we could make.
We were able to get basic law enforcement training to make it mandatory that people going into law enforcement would get training about autism. And it's my understanding that they still have to have annual training classes I'm not sure that they're as good as we would like them to be, but they do have some training at least to recognize what the word is and how somebody might act.
We were able to do a video. It's called Autism in the Criminal Justice System, available through Dennis DeBalt, which his company is Legacy Productions. And the video is available through him. Although the state of North Carolina paid the production video, but he sells the DVD.
That sounds great. What does it cover?
uh yeah and it's about an autistic we had a real autistic person who was charged with some sort of online pornography or distributing pornography which is kind of a typical offense as autistic males generally get older and they think that something that's on tv or comes on the internet is okay to watch and so they don't really understand that it's illegal to be to be watching that stuff or sending it or anything
So we did the video and basically went through some explanation how someone on spectrum might act and that they have difficulty with eye contact, some difficulty with understanding instructions and can even get, you know, defensive or aggressive at times, you know, when they feel they're under threat.
We've continued to try to educate law enforcement and still have some pretty bad incidents happening. Hopefully we've made some difference. But one of the things that we did, and we expanded this group to the Autism Society of America, and it became a committee called Safe and Sound through the Autism Society of America.
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Chapter 5: How are autism resources improving for individuals and families?
So we're not trying to punish anybody. We're just trying to educate you so that you don't run into a situation, don't know what to do.
Yeah, that's what this podcast is about. It's about talking with people like yourself, judges, lawyers, and anyone that works within the legal system. It's not about pointing fingers at anyone. Just trying to give information so it can be better for everyone and make the system work that much smoother.
Right, right. And that's a wonderful thing. And one of the first things I think I would tell anybody... Your 911 system, emergency communication, if they have information that tells you, oh, there's someone in that household that may have autism, whoever goes needs to know that right up front. So that when they go, they know what to expect.
And, you know, the person they have women to eye contact and verbal ability and such. I think we've got that in place pretty much around most of North Carolina.
Yeah, yeah, that's a good thing. The more people know, the better things are.
Right, right.
So are you still active? I know that you're an emergency judge still. Are you still involved with all these agencies that you was working with to help the autistic people?
Well, here's what happened. I've become, I guess it's probably happened to a lot of parents. As your child gets older and they don't go to school, somebody has to be with them, at least with my son.
Sure.
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Chapter 6: What is the importance of national legislation for autism training?
Yeah, I talk with a lot of people across the pond.
You don't necessarily have to go there. You could actually join some sort of a website or a Zoom meeting or something. So that does help with that. And the funny thing is, I don't know if you've seen this, but everybody's got the same problem. If you talk to a parent, say in Australia, their problems are the same as ours. Kind of a universal thing that's happening in Australia.
larger and larger numbers.
Yes, I get a chance to talk with people from all around the world. I had a lady ask me just the other day, of all the people that I talk with, what do I find that's different from country to country? My answer was pretty much nothing. Everyone has about the same story. The only difference is in the place that they live and how their countries or areas support autism.
I think that's wonderful that you're getting ideas from other parts of the world because sometimes we feel out here in North Carolina, we don't feel that we're getting all that information. So it's great that you're doing it.
Yeah, this podcast has worked out well. Now, since you started as a judge up until now, what are some of the things that you see different in how people are handling autism?
Well, you have the crisis intervention teams, which is great. And some of the larger towns and cities have it very well. Trying to divert someone with special needs into help rather than jail or prison. I was a member of the board of the Disability Rights of North Carolina, which is a federal organization.
And one of the primary goals of that group is to see how many people with disabilities are being incarcerated and released. wrongfully being incarcerated because whatever they did was related to their disability, not due to any mental intention to hurt anybody. So I worked with them for a large number of years.
Also seeing that people with autism are getting a whole lot better resources at an early age, and I think that really helps, you know, for them to become verbal and, you know, going to school. And I had one client who I represented them all. That young man graduated from college recently and is doing great. He's going to be a beneficial person for everybody.
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Chapter 7: How can the legal system better support individuals with autism?
Right.
So I think in that sense, people are open. more understanding when it hits them at home. Judges are just like any other people.
Yeah, absolutely.
Lawyers and judges are just like any other group of people. And you've got to show them, I think, that this is going to help not only your profession, but also the people who are affected by autism and their families. And as you say, if you're concerned about resources, it certainly helps to divert people from the jails and prisons.
Yeah, exactly. What do you see happening now? You've been on the bench. You still are on the bench, even though it's an emergency judge. You see all these things that are happening in the country with autism and mental health. What do you think actually needs to happen for everything to take a turn and start to change?
Well, the situation in our country right now, to me, is pretty scary. Because it seems to me that compassion, people are not doing anything based on compassion or attempting to help other people. And I don't know what you do other than try to elect somebody that does have those qualities.
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Chapter 8: What changes have occurred in the treatment of autism over the years?
Because right now it seems that a lot of the folks that we're putting into government are just concerned about promoting themselves or some monetary issue.
Yeah, I agree. Compassion is something that's needed.
Yeah, I'm not seeing much of it.
How do you see making the legal system a little more tolerant? You've been tolerant. You know judges that have been tolerant. How do we expand that?
Judges are elected here. They're elected, you know, partisan elections. We used to have nonpartisan, but partisan elections. What you've got to do is make it part of their platform and part of the way you get elected is to show people that you have the ability to understand what's the difference between right and wrong. You know, what's going to make your society safer?
What's going to save your society resources? You know, what's going to keep people from coming back to the courthouse and courtroom over and over? Because I can tell you, I have sentenced people. I've done it for so long. I've sentenced people and then sentenced their grandparents and their grandchildren. It's sad. that you see this.
I guess a lot of it depends on where you are geographically also. Because if you grew up in a metropolitan area, like, for example, I grew up in the Triangle, which is Raleigh, Durham, Capitol Hill. And, you know, there are a lot of different folks there. You know, it's a lot of university people, educated people, people of all different walks of society.
And I grew up with that kind of environment. But somebody that grows up, say, in rural North Carolina or maybe rural Tennessee, it doesn't see anybody except the people that are like them. You know, they only see the people that look like them, talk like they do. And they don't expand their beliefs and they don't expand their horizons to understand why other people do things the way they do.
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. The world has become smaller, so it's one of those things where we have to take and learn from other people.
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