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'Cash for kids' case back in court; key witness says Luzerne judge agreed to be paid for wrongfully sending kids into lockup
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'Cash for kids' case back in court; key witness says Luzerne judge agreed to be paid for wrongfully sending kids into lockup
Not exactly Philly-centric, but definitely a big deal: A Luzerne County judge who allegedly agreed to take kickbacks from the builder of a juvenile detention center in exchange for sending kids into lockup is on trial today.
The case initially involved two judges -- Mark. A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan -- who pleaded guilty to illegally accepting millions in cash in exchange wrongfully sentencing potentially thousands of kids to serve time in lockup between 2003 and 2008. The Pa. Supreme Court -- working from a petition brought forward by Philadelphia's Juvenile Law Center -- expunged some 6,000 sentences handed down by the judges. The Luzerne County juvenile justice system, in other words, collapsed.
Both judges initially pled guilty to the kickback scheme. Conahan has stuck with that plea and could face 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine but Ciavarella instead decided to stand trial. Those proceedings began Tuesday in Scranton's Federal courthouse.
Citizen's Voice in Wilkes-Barre is providing coverage by the hour and the Associated Press reports today (via the Atlanta Journal Constitution) that the juvenile detention center's builder testified to the judge's involvement:
Robert Mericle testified Wednesday at the trial of former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella (shiv-uh-REL'-uh). Prosecutors say Ciavarella was part of a $2.8 million "kids for cash" scheme in which he locked up juvenile offenders at detention facilities Mericle built.
Mericle told the court that he visited Ciavarella in his courthouse office and said he wouldn't have had the opportunity to build the facilities without Ciavarella. Mericle testified that Ciavarella agreed he should be paid as a result.
Meanwhile, the Standard Speaker in Hazelton, Pa. reports that court employees who worked for Ciavarella Jr. and Conahan are now being implicated as well.
The New York Times adds interesting coverage as well as audio interviews with some of the wrongfully sentenced kids. The Wall Street Journal's "Law Blog" has a summary of the case with a few useful links.
Not included in those links, however, is the link to the report by the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice -- which in based on Market Street in Center City Philadelphia and was formed by the Pa. General Assembly with the sole purpose of finding out what happened in this case and how it can be avoided in the future. That report is here in PDF form. Among its conclusions:
The collapse of the juvenile justice system in Luzerne County carries with it sad lessons. Most important, the experience demonstrates what happens when judicial power is divorced from the constraints of law, when slogans such as âzero toleranceâ masquerade as thoughtful philosophy, and when judicial courage and compassion are replaced with a self-serving cunning.
[...] ⢠‘Cash for kids’ case back in court; key witness says Luzerne judge agreed to be paid... [...]
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