Judge faces criticism following report that Black children were illegally jailed in Tennessee county

Eleven Black children in the county were charged with a crime that doesn't exist, an attorney told ABC News.

There is renewed criticism of a juvenile court judge in Rutherford County, Tennessee, following a joint ProPublica and Nashville Public Radio report that alleges Judge Donna Scott Davenport oversaw a juvenile justice system where Black children were disproportionally and illegally hit with criminal charges.

The investigation centers around a 2016 incident where 11 Black children, some as young as 8 and 9 years old, were allegedly arrested for not stopping a fight captured on video. Ten of the children were charged with "criminal responsibility for conduct of another."

Frank Ross Brazil, an attorney who represented several of the children, told ABC News that criminal responsibility is a prosecutorial theory and not a charge under Tennessee law.

"If you and I are in a car, and there's something illegal in the car and I'm arrested for possessing it, you could be also found guilty of possessing that substance by the theory of criminal responsibility for another," he said. "So, that being applied as a charge in and of itself is unlawful."