Diane Tran is a 17-year-old honor student, a high school junior with two jobs, and now — thanks to one Houston judge and Texas student absentee laws — a criminal.

So the world decided to lend her a hand.

Going from job to job to support two siblings — while taking advanced-placement and dual-credit college level courses — Diane had missed too many days of school, according to KHOU in Houston, which first reported her story.

So a judge, Lanny Moriarty, decided she needed to do some hard time. He sentenced her to 24 hours in jail with a $100 fine for missing school after she’d been warned in April not to miss school again.

“If you let one [truant student] run loose, what are you going to do with the rest of them?” Moriarty told KHOU. “Let them go too? A little stay in the jail for one night isn’t a death sentence.”

"I can understand if a child is staying out of school, running around, a bad kid, getting into trouble, taking drugs," Mary Elliot, Diane's boss at her weekend job, told ABC News. Diane was at the job when ABC arrived to do the interview and wouldn’t comment. "I can understand why he would slap them into jail for 24 hours. But Diane doesn't do that. All she does is work and go to school."

KHOU reported that Diane, whose parents divorced and left town, supports an older brother at Texas A&M University and a baby sister living with relatives in Houston.

“She goes from job to job; from school she stays up till 7 o’clock in the morning,” Devin Hill, a friend, coworker and classmate, told KHOU.

If you think this case sounds outrageous, the Internet has agreed, whipping itself into a mighty frenzy to lend Diane a hand after her story went national.

A Change.org petition asking the judge to revoke her sentence and her fine has more than 150,000 signatures.

But the Louisiana Children’s Education Alliance, based in Baton Rouge, has gone a step further, starting a website Friday to raise money for Diane. The group says it's already raised $63,000 from donors in 11 countries.

“Our hearts broke when we read Diane’s story,” alliance President Charlie Davis said in a news release. “It’s bad enough that she’s the victim of the failing public education system, but for the judicial system to attempt to use her as an ‘example’ to others is reprehensible.”

Paul Dietzel, founder of Anedot, a fundraising service helping the children’s foundation with raising the money, told the Los Angeles Times that the foundation was working with one of Diane's bosses to set up a trust fund for the money.

“There’s still some legalities being determined with exactly how the trust of account should be set up in order to protect Diane and make sure she doesn’t get a huge tax burden, so they’re still working out the details on that, but they’re for sure going from the [Louisiana Children’s Education Alliance] and an account set up for Diane,” he said.

Dietzel said Diane and her boss weren’t taking interview requests until the end of Thursday, when Diane's final exams are over.

The alliance, which says it will donate 100% of the money to Diane, says anyone with questions about the effort can call (504) 222-2920.
Texas honor student: Two jobs, now jail -- for missing school - latimes.com

A 17-year-old Houston honor student jailed 24 hours for missing too much school likely spent the night surrounded by "every type of criminal that exists," one Houston defense attorney said.
Diane Tran, an 11th-grade honor student at Willis High School near Houston, was sent to jail for 24 hours last Wednesday by Judge Lanny Moriarty and ordered to pay a $100 fine for excessive truancy.
It’s unclear how many days Tran missed, but state law reportedly permits only 10 absences in a six-month period.
Tran, who works full-time at a dry-cleaning business and part-time for a wedding planner, has been supporting her brother and sister since her parents separated and her mother moved away.
Houston defense attorney Ned Barnett on Tuesday called the ruling "outrageous" and said "a little discretion should have been used" in the teenager's case.
"It doesn’t take much discretion to have sympathy for Miss Tran," Barnett said. "To lock her up is just outrageous."
Barnett, who is not defending Tran, said the girl likely spent her 24-hour jail sentence at Montgomery County Jail surrounded by suspected murderers, drug addicts and prostitutes.
"It's hard-core," he said of the jail, noting that past clients whom he has defended described it as "the worst experience of their life."

Judge Moriarty told KHOU 11 News that he intended to make an example of Tran by placing her in jail.
"If you let one run loose, what are you going to do with the rest of them? Let them go, too?" Moriarty told the station.
Mary Elliot, owner of Vineyards of Waverly Manor, where Tran works, told FoxNews.com that Tran is a "straight-A student" and "exceptionally good kid" who takes college-level courses and has a strong work ethic. Elliot said the teenager should never have been arrested and forced to spend the night in jail.
"Her family has taught her a good work ethic," Elliot said. "Her brother was No. 8 in his class. She wants to do better than that."
"We need to change what they do to these kids in the school," she said. "They need to look at their records instead of just judge them as bad kids."
E. Tay Bond, a well-known Houston defense attorney, said the judge likely had no discretion to avert a jail sentence.
"There's no legal exception that I’m aware of that if you're an honors student, you’re allowed to exceed a maximum number of unexcused days under the Texas Compulsory Education Laws," Bond told FoxNews.com. "Twenty-four hours would be about the minimum period of confinement to make a point.
"I think the public policy of making kids attend school is necessary and 24 hours in jail would be pretty minimal and should get the point across," he said.
Since the girl's story went viral, hundreds of people have rallied to raise money for the teen. One group, called the Louisiana Children's Education Alliance, set up a website named helpdianetran.com that reported it had raised nearly $40,000 for the girl.
Houston Councilman Al Hoang said what he worries about most is Tran's record.
"I’m going to ask the judge to expunge the record," Hoang told FoxNews.com. "The truancy laws should be applied case by case and in this case, it should not be applied. I believe Judge Moriarty should have used his discretionary power to excuse her from this matter."


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/28...#ixzz1wJu3Arh7