CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – In 2015, a college student in Clarksville named Artrice Pray was arrested for vehicular burglary, identity theft and forgery. He had stolen a credit card from a car and used it to buy a $56 carton of cigarettes. He was charged, and his bail was set at $10,000. To make matters worse, he lost his student senator position at Austin Peay State University.

But thanks to the work of Judge Ken Goble, Pray was able to move on from his mistakes. He’s now the law clerk for a judge in New Orleans criminal courts.

At a Montgomery County Commission meeting on Nov. 4, Pray shared his success story – from juvenile detainee to lawyer – and used it as an example for why a new juvenile resource center is needed, to help rehabilitate young people so cases like his become the norm.

Success story

Pray said the way Goble managed his case changed his life. Other judges had looked at Pray’s case, and his good grades, and decided to give him probation. It wasn’t until he met Goble that he started making better decisions. Rather than giving him probation, Goble sat down and talked with Pray and encouraged him not to waste his potential. That one conversation changed the course of his life.

Years later, he returned to Goble’s courtroom and told him he had graduated from APSU and planned to go to law school. However, he couldn’t attend unless his record was expunged, which would require him to either pay a significant fee or have a judge waive the cost. Goble said he is typically conservative about waiving costs, but he made an exception. Three years later, Pray graduated from law school.

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Pray moved to Louisiana, where he got a job in the Public Defender’s Office, and he now works as the Judicial Law Clerk for a judge in the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. He joked in a letter that one day he will take Goble’s position, and Goble keeps that letter on his desk to this day as a keepsake.

Goble said, “In this line of work, so rare is it that you get to see the embodiment of an investment that you make down the road. When we talk about Juvenile Court and the resources that we give our young folks to make better decisions, all too often – in this state and many states like it – the solution has been put them on probation, put them in detention, keep kicking the can down the road; eventually, it’s not our problem.”

Pray said he supports giving resources to young people so they won’t do what’s easy, and “kick the can down the road.” He said this can be done by investing in the youth, the community, and the families of Clarksville. And that by taking these steps, people like him won’t be the exception, they’ll be the standard. Pray encouraged the commissioners to get the resource center built and acquire the resources to help Clarksvillians.

Community Coalition

At the same meeting, Youth Services Court Administrator Edward Moss updated the commissioners on the work of the Juvenile Court Community Coalition, a group with the goal of learning about the Juvenile Court system by speaking with judges and attending trials.

“Starting in September of this year, we’ve had 50 to 55 members within the community come to Division 1, which is Judge Ken Goble’s courtroom, to really have an understanding about how Juvenile Court really works. … At these meetings, participants had the opportunity to learn about the court system and speak with the judge directly.”

In November, they had Division 3 with Judge Sharon Massey Grimes, who focuses on social work, in order to share what resources the court put in place, and how to mitigate bad circumstances.

The group also plans to go to Division 2 with Judge Reid Poland. The only court that is not open to the community is Judge Tim Barnes’s Division 4, due to the severe nature of those cases.

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