Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ? - Judge Kim Taylor:A Judge's Journey with Autism

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Send us a text Judge 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 personally Tell 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.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI) The content on Why Not Me: Embracing Autism amd Mental Health Worldwide, including discussions on mental health, autism, and related topics, is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect those of the podcast, its hosts, or affiliates.Why Not Me is not a medical or mental health professional and does not endorse or verify the accuracy, efficacy, safety of any treatments, programs, or advice discussed.Listeners should consult qualified healthcare professionals, such as licensed therapists, psychologists, or physicians, before making decisions about mental health or autism- related care.Reliance on this podcast's contents is at the listener's own risk. Why Not Me is not liable for any outcomes, financial or otherwise, resulting from actions taken based on the information provided. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Why Not Me The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mayator. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make your laugh, some will make you cry. Real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world. hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World, Humanity Over Handcuffs, the Silent Crisis Special Event. Today we have the pleasure of hosting Judge Kim Taylor. She began her career in private practice before running for a judicial position.

Notably, she was the first woman to run for that position. After believing that she had lost, the election, she discovered the next day, she had won the election by a mere 75 votes over four counties. As a mother of an autistic son, Judge Taylor is a passionate advocate for autism support. It's an honor to have her share her inspiring story with us. I appreciate you coming on. Can you tell us how you came to help autistic people when they came in front of you during your sessions at court? Well, I was elected district court judge in Alexander, Ardala, Davia Davidson counties in 1986. At that time, I had one child who did not have autism. In 1987, my second child was born, the name of 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, how he was going to be as he grew older. We did the hearing test, neurological tests, 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 was 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 on. But I have a sister-in-law who was director of Inceptional Children's Program, 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 classroom 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've got to come get him from school. He'd fint himself, and, you know, it was just pretty terrible. I continued on a bench. I can't recall if I was in Superior District. I think I was a Superior Court judge at the time, that my husband was working as a deputy sheriff in Ardell County and told me after his work shift that he believed someone had, 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 stateful, North Carolina. And apparently he had a meltdown with the caregiver because they thought because he was, his medication been changed or something that had happened in his environment that caused him to have a meltdown. She called 911. Officers went out. Didn't understand. She told them, we believe, at the scene, she told him 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 versus fathers of law enforcement. You know, 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 in various interested parties.

We were able to develop some plans and some changes that we could make. We were able to get that 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 can recognize what the word is and how somebody might act. We were able to do in video. It's called Autism, the Criminal Justice System, available through Dennis DeBalt, which is his company

is Legacy Productions. And the videos available through him. Although the state in North Carolina paid the production video, but he can, he sells the DVD. That sounds great. What does it cover? 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 event.

As autistic male, they don't 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 watching that stuff or sending it or anything. So we did the video and basically went through some explanation how someone on the 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 made some different.

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 Office of Society of America. And we had representatives from all over the country working with us on Safe and Sound and going around doing trainings

and developing training materials and such. And a lot of the people are still out there. The fire standing is still out there working. That's a good deal. hear are the first responders the ones that still seem to be out there yeah a lot of you folks are first responders the law enforcement who have kids on the spectrum and who kind of made it their life purpose you know to try to help yeah that's great yeah it is great but i wish we had i wish we had more resources and i wish we had a more national flood deflation if that makes sense

because it's spotty of here and there and virginia is trying to do stuff And, you know, everybody's trying to do their own thing. And I wish we had something more uniform. Yeah, I agree. I've spoken with two former House of Representatives. They say national legislation is needed. Yeah, good. I think there's a state center in Florida that's trying to get some local legislation as well.

I do agree with you, though. We need more national legislation. So that way, it's not just local spots around the country. Right, right. The thing about it is, say there's a bad incident. and somebody with autism is hurt or killed in a law enforcement custody or, you know, with any first responder. It hurts the family of that person, the law enforcement officer, or whoever the individual is that, you know, is involved with the scenario is usually damaged by it. Yeah, absolutely.

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 in emergency communication,

If they have information that tells you, oh, there's someone in that household that they 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 limited eye contact and verbal ability, and but 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 happening for 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. And so I've had to back off a lot of the outside things. I do because I'm taking care of him a lot. But I do, you know, still try to stay involved. And Zach has helped a lot with that because it's just getting me, making me do things. And, you know, I think he's doing a whole lot, you know, for at least in North Carolina and nationally. So I'm working some with him. And then I have taken emails and calls from parents trying to help them with resources and such.

I'm not traveling around like I used to to do training. Although if the internet was dead or maybe I could. Yeah, the internet has definitely made the world a lot smaller. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes that's not so good. But as they say, it's better than nothing. Well, yeah, if you've got to communicate, you know, with someone in, say, England. Yeah, I talk with a lot of people across the pond.

You don't necessarily have to go there. You could actually, you know, join some sort of a website or, or a meeting, 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 saying in Australia, their problems are the same as ours.

Kind of a universal thing that's happening in larger and larger numbers. Yes, I get a chance to talk with people from all around the world. I had a lady asked 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 very well to try and divert someone with special needs to help rather than jail or prison.

I was a member of the board of the disability right 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 wrongfully being incarcerated because whatever they did was related to their disability not to do to any mental intention to hurt anybody. So I worked with them for larger years. Also seeing that people with autism are getting a whole lot better resources at an early age and I think that really helps for them to become verbal and you know, going to school. And I had one client.

I represented the mom. That young man graduated from college recently is doing great. He's going to be a beneficial person for everybody. Yeah. Now, you had compassion as a judge because you lived it. How do you think we can get across to other judges, district attorneys, ADAs, so that we can show them that this is not just a black or white situation.

There's a lot of gray area in the middle, and they need to help figure this thing out for everyone. Well, and that's a great question. It's very difficult. At least I would also head of the education committee for this court judges, and people are fighting for a little bit of time to come to the judges and make presentations.

We only have conferences every. Well, twice a year. So the best thing we could do, I think as far as their education would be to develop something that goes out that people will watch. That's on point with their job that they think is relevant. And, well, sometimes you've got to make people watch stuff, sadly. But I think these professionals, from most part, the judges that I know, I guess you can become really mean and angry. but a lot of people at law school and into judicial system because they want to help people. And if you could show them that this is helping and this is not, you know, somebody just made up this diagnosis so they can get out of something.

Because I think that's what, there are a lot of step to suit them out there. You know, you've got autism, right. Right. I've heard that before. There's a judge down in Miami. He just retired. He works with a facility. It just happens to be very large. his opinion is if you can take and put them in a facility where they can get treatment,

the chances of that same person showing up in front of a judge again is rare. So he believes that this is the best way to work the system is by helping them and diverting them to care facilities. Right, and that's true of a lot of different diagnosis and even, you know, people who are addiction problem. So yeah, I certainly agree with that. And, you know, if you stick somebody in prison here in North Carolina, they might not get any kind of help for years. And then they come out and nothing has called them not to do what it was they did before. Do you see or have you seen the judges in your area starting to see what's going on and want to help? Some of these people that need the help, such as autistic people and those with mental health issues,

I have seen more open-mindedness about it because a lot of people have somebody or know somebody to have autism. It's so prevalent now. And, you know, I can go in and speak to a room full of lawyers and judges. And usually I can ask them, you know, we'll raise your hand if you know somebody on the autism sector or have a relative rate. You know, and three or fourth of the room will raise their hand. Right. So I think in that sense, people are 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 thinks to me that compassion, and 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

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 different between right and wrong. You know, what's going to make your society safer, what's going to save your society resources. You know, it'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 sentence the 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-Capel Hill. And, you know, there are a lot of different folks there. You know, it's a lot of university, people, educated, people, people all different walks of society. And I grew up with that kind of environment, but somebody that grows up saying 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 around, talk like they do, you know, 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, yeah, I definitely agree with that. The world has become smaller, you know, so it's one of those things where we have to take and learn from other people. Yeah, we do. We do. And I'm not lost hope because, as I say, when we, even when we did this thing back in 2005 with the legislature, I had district attorneys and law enforcement, all these folks that were wanting to help and wanting to be a part of our educational efforts.

So it wasn't as bad as you might think. It seems to me, once you get people on an individual basis to care versus a large group of people that, I don't care, I don't know, I'm wrong, you know. Yeah, I agree. That comes a lot from understanding. I think more that we put out there so that people can understand, hopefully the more people will change their attitude and be willing to help. That's true.

That's true. And judges and VA, you know, we focus so much on consequences, but let's focus some on preventative measures. You know, what can we do to divert this from the court system? What would you like to tell people that they need to hear about autism, about the legal system, some of the things that you think are real important that you've done or others have done that people should hear? I think probably the most important thing is to open your mind to different things

among people. And if you're going to be working with the public, and especially in the court system where you're making life changing decisions for people and for families, you need to understand what these terms mean. If you hear the word, you know, autism, you need to know that it's a developmental disability. People don't get cured of it. They can do better and function better, but they're not going to be cured. And if they actually have a diagnosis, there are certain things similar among folks on the spectrum.

And put your mind to a possibility. I think that this was true back five or six years ago made me still true. We had the University of North Carolina have a program to diagnose and try to train classroom teachers, for example, about how to deal with my own spectrum. And so the military started sending people with families with someone on inspection from North Carolina. And we just had a large influx of people coming here that needed these resources. I've been told, and I'm not sure it's true. I've been told that other states now or advanced over North Carolina. I don't know.

How do you make people have incentive to care? I don't know how you do that. Unfortunately, we are a country. It's not a problem until it's a problem for our family. Exactly. Unfortunately, that's the way a lot of people think. We just have to find a way to get them out of that mindset. I don't give you an example of that because I was seeing it personally.

Somebody, you know, you talk to people out driving while impaired. I'll put them in just. shoot them, blah, blah, blah. And then it's their son or their uncle or somebody in their family. Oh, but he's a nice guy, and you're exactly right. Nobody cares until it affects their family and their lives. And autism can happen in anybody's family. Absolutely.

Autism can happen to anyone's family. It can be rich, it can be poor, it doesn't choose. That's fine. Before we close this out, I'm curious on how you actually got involved. in a legal system. Well, I went to underbradded at Duke and I wanted to go to medical school. My mom was a registered nurse and my dad was a scientist. Didn't really like the chemistry.

And when I got out of school, I went and worked for Social Security Disability. They have the worst job ever. I did that for a year in a cubicle where you have to tell people they can't get disability. And I try to convince you to turn them down. So then I decided I'm going to go law school. I loved law school, and a lot of people didn't like it, but I loved it. I was there with the people that understood me and how I thought. I really loved it.

And still, like, associate was most attorneys. They're not bad people. When you graduated law school, did you go directly into the court system, or did you start a private practice? When I got a law school, I married the guy from up here in Alexandria County, and we started law practice together. And I did just about everything in a solo law practice. or small practice like that.

You can't really specialize. So I was doing criminal defense, family law. I would do title searches and deep and such. Learned a lot. That was when I was 25. And then when I was 30, I ran for just a court judge position that was open up here. And no woman had ever run for it before up here.

The guy that was run against me, he came to me and said, well, is this really not your turn? You're only 30 years old, you know. You know, it's really, you know, you need to wait. And I said, no, I'm going to do it. And I won by 75 votes with four counties. And the night of the election, the newspaper published that my opponent had won.

I went to bed thinking that he won. And then the next morning won the precinct in Ardle County, the She that broke in and they came through with me. And I won. Yeah, so. Wow, that's a great story. Yeah, it was amazing. It's all the first female job up here in either district or various peer court.

There are a lot of them now, and I'm glad about it because I think sometimes, you know, helps it that women have had to experience this growing age and such. Yeah, absolutely. Plus, you have an autistic son. That gives you actual insight on what people go through on a daily basis. Yeah, and I don't know how you really educate people about what's going to be happening. I probably didn't say that very well, but if you live in a large city, you might have a place where your adult son can go to some sort of a work job and some sort of, you know, place where they're safe, but they're with other people. There's nothing much up here in a rural Westmoreland, Carol.

And it seems like there's less now. There's no wife. This has been great. Great conversation, great information. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. Yeah, I enjoy it. Thank you for asking me. Thank you for doing what you're doing.

I think it's going to be wonderful. And maybe you can write a book or series of books about it. Well, you never know about that. Thanks again. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to be. tell us their story, send them to tonymentor.com, contact, then they can give us their information

so one day they may be a guest on our show. One more thing we ask, tell 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.