The mother of a 10-year-old child who was sentenced by a Mississippi judge to three months of probation and a book report for urinating in public has refused to sign his probation agreement and has asked for the charge against her son to be dismissed, the family's attorney announced Tuesday, per the AP. The child's mother had initially planned on signing the agreement to avoid the risk of prosecutors upgrading her son's charge from "child in need of supervision" to disorderly conduct, as they threatened, but she changed her mind after reading the full agreement Tuesday, attorney Carlos Moore said. "We cannot in good conscience accept a probation agreement that treats a 10-year-old child as a criminal," Moore said. "The terms proposed are not in the best interest of our client, and we will take all necessary steps to challenge them."
The terms for the 10-year-old's probation were similar to those prosecutors would demand of an adult, including sections that prohibited the use of weapons and demanded he submit to drug tests at a probation officer's discretion, Moore said. The agreement also imposed an 8pm curfew for the child, which would have taken effect during the Christmas holiday. The terms of the agreement stem from a sentence ordered on Dec. 12 by Tate County Youth Court Judge Rusty Harlow. The judge said the child, who is Black, must serve three months of probation and write a two-page book report on the late NBA star Kobe Bryant. After advising the boy's mother not to sign the probation agreement, Moore filed a motion requesting the Tate County Youth Court either dismiss the case or set a trial. A hearing on that motion has been scheduled for Jan. 16.
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