Pa judges to plead guilty today to charges of jailing kids for cash
Two judges in Pennsylvania are set to plead in federal court today on charges of accepting kickbacks in exchange for sending juveniles to privately run detention centers.
In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers."I've never encountered, and I don't think that we will in our lifetimes, a case where literally thousands of kids' lives were just tossed aside in order for a couple of judges to make some money," said Marsha Levick, an attorney with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, which is representing hundreds of youths sentenced in Wilkes-Barre.
Prosecutors say Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC. The judges were charged on Jan. 26 and removed from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court shortly afterward.
No company officials have been charged, but the investigation is still going on.
The high court, meanwhile, is looking into whether hundreds or even thousands of sentences should be overturned and the juveniles' records expunged.
Among the offenders were teenagers who were locked up for months for stealing loose change from cars, writing a prank note and possessing drug paraphernalia. Many had never been in trouble before. Some were imprisoned even after probation officers recommended against it.
Many appeared without lawyers, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1967 ruling that children have a constitutional right to counsel.
It is always tough working in the juvenile court - the court's decisions are to be guided by the rule of what is best for the child, as opposed to the harsher punishments doled out in adult court. Often what happens in juvenile court is devastating, as judges try to sort out not only what the child did but why he or she did it, and what sentence will most likely result in added stability for the child and his or her family.
To imagine a judge abdicating that responsibility in exchange for money, or to imagine the persons at the company who arranged for the kickbacks so that they could make more money themselves off of locking up children, just defies emotion. What a betrayal to all of the people who work in and around that courthouse, striving to help troubled children and their families day in and day out.
