Eastern Pennsylvania has a terrible reputation for judicial corruption and venality -- the stories one hears from practitioners and others around Philadelphia are truly awful, with bags full of money and all the rest. But a story in the NY Times today breaks new, and more nauseating, ground. Two judges in the Wilkes-Barre area have pleaded guilty to taking kickbacks -- $2.6 million worth -- from local juvenile detention centers for sentencing young offenders to time in the facility (the facilities were reimbursed by the state on a per-prisoner basis, so the more kids they had, the more money they earned). So dozens and dozens of kids who would ordinarily have expected to get a slap on the wrist -- for writing nasty things about their high school principals on Facebook, for starting fights in the playground, that sort of thing -- received sentences of several months in the detention facility instead, all, it turns out, to line the pockets of the judges.
Maybe it's just because I am a parent with two kids of my own, or maybe I'm just a soft-hearted romantic, but to do this to young people for the sake of a few bucks (or 2.6 million bucks, or 260 million bucks) is -- well, you pick your own adjective. One has to assume that lives were ruined because of this -- 3 months in juvy for a high school kid who doesn't belong there is a terrible, terrible thing - and I hope these two (for the record, and for the benefit of Internet readers in the 22nd century, and to insure that their names do not disappear from the List of the Wicked, the judges in question were Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and Judge Michael T. Conahan) get the punishment they so truly deserve. 2009, I hope, won't give us anything more shameful than this.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Evil Men:
- Most Revolting Corruption Story in a Long Time:
Course, even if the legislature tried it the courts would probably protect themselves by saying no.
Heh. I was initially thinking the same thing, but figured I'd just come off as a blood-thirsty wingnut.
Maybe I take these things too seriously, but actions like this that undermine our system of laws strike me as particularly egregious.
Won't happen though. They'll get light sentences, since they weren't writing naughy things on Facebook.
For libertarians who think that industries tend to "capture" the agencies that regulate them, isn't this a case against privatization of government functions?
That point aside, these judges should get a much harsher sentence than the 67 months specified in the plea agreement.
Several shoes await dropping -- who paid the kickbacks? who fed the cases to these judges? -- but already an interesting angle has developed. The owner of the private detention facility appears to be a son of a former Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice and a brother of the current district attorney in the county in which Pittsburgh is located, on the other side of the state. A similar facility, which appears to be owned by the same person, is located near . . . did you guess? . . . Pittsburgh.
And that's just a bare minimum; from a utilitarian viewpoint - and clearly these men and others like them employ a utilitarian, amoral viewpoint - the risk/reward ratio needs to be adjusted by additional punishment in order to discourage similar abuse in the future.
Keep in mind that in Greylord the judges were convicting innocent people so that they could keep their total conviction numbers in line with other judges. I suppose there's a distinction between kids/adults, but otherwise they're pretty analogous.
Being sentenced to an excessive sentence by a corrupt judge (who profits from the increased sentence) surely amounts to a due process violation.
There should be special penalties for all public servants who abuse the trust we have in them.
the digi-files will be looooong gone!
"At worst, Hillary Transue thought she might get a stern lecture when she appeared before a judge for building a spoof MySpace page mocking the assistant principal at her high school in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. She was a stellar student who had never been in trouble, and the page stated clearly at the bottom that it was just a joke.
Instead, the judge sentenced her to three months at a juvenile detention center on a charge of harassment."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html
It would seem to me to not only be a serious corruption issue, but also a 1st amendment issue.
Surely, immunity can't be claimed for a judge who accepts bribes to alter his official duty discretion. Perhaps showing a bribe influenced a specific case would be difficult but these criminals with gavels should spend the rest of their days defending civil suits and fighting off civil rights violation proceedings.
I suppose it is to much to hope if they get jail time, they do it in the general population where they might meet some of their victims in a more equal setting.
Plus conspiracy and 18 USC 1961 racketeering aka RICO, with the predicate offense being bribery under 18 USC 1951. With the conspiracy charge, each conspirator is liable for the acts, and criminal violations, of each other conspirator.
And the US Attorney can seize ALL the assets of the detention facilities and businesses profiting from this.
The parents can sue everyone but the judges and DA's, and there are plenty of deep pockets available. Civil causes of action include RICO as well as 42 USC 1983.
i would agree.
so, it's ok for larry flynt to mock jerry falwell, but it's "harassment" for a student to use a webpage to mock her principal?
sorry, that seems inconsistent to me.
note that the war on domestic violence (hate to sound like a broken record here) is a part of the expansion of our laws to include "harassment" and "cyberstalking" and other speech crimes becoming more broad, to protect victims from oh so nefarious mean words.
if there is one thing i am sure the 1st amendment was designed to protect, it is the act of mocking people.
The culprits here are about to find out just how wide a net can be thrown using civil conspiracy and RICO. Everyone and every business involved is in deep trouble, the immune judicial officers/DA's excepted. And the judgments won't be dischargeable in bankruptcy.
The counties/cities which used the detention facilities will be liable for all but the punitive damages. It looks like the taxpayers of Luzerne County, Pennsylvannia, will be paying the civil judgments for the next fifty years.
[Fantasizing about a really large and juicy auto-da-fe in Eastern PA...]
It is inconsistent, but students just don't get as much First Amendment protection in school, at school related functions, in regards to school generally, etc.
For example, last August, the 6th Circuit ruled that a principal could ban clothing depicting the Confederate flag.
Oh joy, it looks like my local income taxes will shoot through the roof - a hazard, I suppose of living in an an area with widespread government corruption. Naturally, everyone who knows the judges is shocked SHOCKED!
All the charges demonstrate is that the judge was financially interested in sentencing juveniles to detention. They do not show any of these sentences itself was a result of malfeasance by the judge.
It is accepted practice that legal decision-makes may have a financial interest in the the outcomes of their legal decisions.
For example, state legislators routinely accept large campaign contributions from prison guard unions who lobby for changes in laws that increase the number of prisoners. An inmate sentenced for violating a criminal law that was enacted because of campaign contributions from prison guard unions has no cause of action against the legislators or against the guards.
Similarly, judges routinely accept (in some jurisdictions) campaign contributions from attorneys appearing before them. Again, not only is there no cause of action against the judge or opposing attorneys by litigants harmed by the judge's decisions in such cases, but the judge's rulings are upheld in such situations.
Thus, the fact that the judge had an indirect financial interest in incarcerating inmates is not grounds for a cause of action by the inmates; moreover, that type of financial interest is standard operating procedure in all phases of the criminal justice system at the state court level, from legislation to judicial appointments to judicial decisions.
They pleaded guilty to "wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks".
Kickbacks are also known as bribes, and bribery is an offense under both 18 USC 1951 and 18 USC 1961. I'd have to see the federal charges and the criminal judgment but, if they pleaded guilty to accepting bribes, it is NOT a:
i would draw a bright line between the school's authoritah at a school function, on school grounds, etc. vs. what a kid does on his OWN TIME with his OWN computer and his own website.
i have no problem with schools being able to (within certain limits) censor speech in the classroom (every teacher needs to do this obviously), mandate codes of dress, bla bla bla. as far as i am concerned the whole in loco parentis thang means schools are like the kids parents and have rather wide latitude.
heck, in my state, a teacher can legally (according to the RCW not necessarily according to school policy obviously) PHYSICALLY discipline a kid, and that is not assault.
the only people who can do that by law are parents, the school, or legal guardians.
but that is completely different from what they can do in regards to the kids off-campus non-school activities.
furthermore, this wasn';t a case of the SCHOOL disciplining the kid for mocking the teacher in his personal website.
this was a case where the state deemed it a CRIMINAL offense, which is a whole other problem.
When government functions can be entirely privatized, that is a good thing. For instance, if the state sells a park off to a private firm that will maintain it and charge admission, but which has no governmental function, that's just fine: the private firm will have an interest in maintaining it as a revenue source. Likewise selling a wildlife sanctuary to private groups such as the Nature Conservancy or Ducks Unlimited is a sensible and sane thing that does not pose a "capture" problem.
But prisons, by definition, cannot be entirely privatized since no private party has the power to imprison. The function of a prison is inherently governmental, because it is coercive -- in a way that ownership and maintenance of a park or forest is not.
I would argue that the state should not have the power to contract out certain functions to the private sector. Among these would be the police power; also the power to make war, except insofar as provided by (e.g.) letters of marque. Historically there has been corruption associated with other privatizations of state power, such as the taxation power in various times.
Did you even read the story? This wasn't a judge that had a couple shares of common stock in a company that runs prisons. They admitted to taking $2.6 MILLION in bribes for putting kids in jail. Period. It wasn't some nominal indirect interest.
one who skipped classes on constitutional law?
Who provided the bribes? Who else was bribed? Who allowed the county-run system to become delapidate? Where there cover-ups that prevented this from being stopped earlier?
Do you really think putting just these two judges in jail eliminates the environment that allowed them to perform this abuse?
Heck if the DA's had recognized that Hillary Transue's "crime" was free speech then they could have not prosecuted it. Why did they? What pursuaded them to pursue the case?
A class action suit has been filed against the two judges and "14 other defendants".
.
Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps the utterly wrongful loss of liberty has taught them how trustworthy a government is.
.
This isn't the first complaint that revolves around the money involved in the privatization of incarceration services, and the creation of "crimes" in order to fill the beds and cause the cash to flow.
I think 18 USC 242's charm is that "under color of law" flatly invalidates official immunity. Otherwise, 18 USC 1584 is remarkably à propos.
Yeah, I don't buy it either. No man capable of the arrogance necessary to carry out such a scheme can possibly conceal it all of the team. That sort of assholery gets manifested in some way.
I sometimes think that way too. Then I think "hanging was good enough for the Nazi war criminals, so it ought to be good enough for these sorts of criminals as well."
(Is it a violation of Godwin's Law if you defend people by comparing them to Nazis?)
And Elliot123 asks:
To which we have less than the sound of crickets chirping in response.
If the bar is aware that the situation is not quite right, if they do not do anything they have earned their reputation as a bunch of charlatans, knaves, and crooks.
http://www.dunwalke.com/introduction.htm
Jump to paragraph 6 to see if it peaks your interest.
It is by Catherine Austin Fitts
I guess we have a rank injustice day to put on our calendars then, since the article says they're getting only something like seven years. Maybe even less depending on how their parole system works.
Let's hope they're sentenced to spend it in the same facility with all those kids they wrongly imprisoned.
And you see nothing wrong with this??!
Wilkes-Barre Times Leader:
Juvie centers not target of ongoing probe
Conahan got cash from pension fund
Class action suits filed vs. judges
Citizen's Voice:
State stops judge's pay
Judges' actions prompt class-action lawsuits (with links to the lawsuits)
[County Commisioner] Skrepenak: 'I do feel used'
Presuming the largest number of people which would need to have been involved, and the number of agencies (schools, prosecutors, various jurisdictions, cops, plus the juvy operators) what agency is big enough and distant enough to properly chase every one of these bastards?
Good question, and I had to ask some libertarian friends to defend their position.
Answer is found in the constitution: Juries.
Augmenting their cash flow by sending one kid or another to prison who did not have to be there? Sentencing to a longer term than needed? This would be a lot of decisions with very small payoff each. This is a whole different equation and I'm not sure that this was going on there on a large scale.
Summing it up, I hope the prison company bought the judges to get into business, not to increase the number of inmates. I hope they did not really send many kids to do hard time for money.
I think more heads will roll (e.g., owners of the detention center). This story is showing a lot more legs than the prosecution must have expected: topic A in much of the blogosphere both right and left.
Perhaps the seven year sentences will be served in a wilderness program. It gets cold out there in the winter.
So! That is a good article, and good argument against supreme court judges.
If eastern Pa. has such a terrible reputation, why aren't the honest lawyers, law professors and judges doing something about it?
Until that final comment, perhaps, but please. Perspective. If the title of the post is narrowed to: Most Non-Political, Non-Ideological, Unambiguously Revolting Corruption Story in a Long Time in the Domestic Juvenile Court System - then, perhaps.
Otherwise, the stated hope is vain, even silly.
Absent those qualifiers, the entire range of underreported U.N. sex scandals and related, attempted coverups would not top the broader list, but it would surpass the juvenile court issue in question in terms of lives and families destroyed, resulting suicides, various forms of graft and bribes, etc. - for example these U.N. sex scandals not only involve rape, they involve participation in kidnapping, the international sex trade, "kiddie porn," associations with criminal syndicates ...
And yes, the latest instance has been uncovered in 2009.
Perspective.
But, on the appropriate punishment, a long prison term would simply put the judges up at taxpayers' expense. They should, after the sentences agreed to, be required to do a lifetime of community service. They should also be required to meet with every young person wrongly sentenced, to apologize, to attempt to explain their behavior; they should be required as well to attend meetings with the parents and listen, at length, to what the parents have to say.
Finally, although this is a direct kickback scheme, it is certainly reasonable to view this as morally indistinguishable (a) from the action of a politician who votes for longer sentences in order to supply work to prison guards and (b) from the actions of the guard's union in lobbying for longer sentences in order to create/protect jobs.
Ethical failure seems to be ingrained in the local political culture.
If they are going to be let out, they should at least be subject to a permanent restraining order. I think requiring them to stay at least 100 miles away from each victim is reasonable.
If there is one thing I am sure the 1st amendment was designed to protect, it is the act of mocking people in positions of authority.
I repeat, though, that this conspiracy had to include multiple district attorneys, public defenders, private defense counsel and probation officers. Plus lots of court personnel - baliffs, clerks, etc. Probably also some deputy state attorneys general - the Pennsylvannia state government might well be included in the RICO "enterprise". I suspect some state legislators were involved too, both in the enabling legislation and in the coverup.
An overt act is not required of civil conspirators. Mere assent to the objectives or unlawful means of the conspiracy is.
Every single one of the individual participants in this is potentially liable, under civil conspiracy, for ALL the damages, including punitive damages, treble RICO damages and attorney fees. And the judgments are not dischargeable in bankrupcty.
Was the prosecutor getting a cut?
And to follow up on what Thomas_Holsinger suggested about the extent of the conspiracy, up until recently Luzerne County employed 85 adult and juvenile probation officers, far more than comparable Pennsylvania counties did. The current chief judge for the county just fired 25 of them.
'ciavarella': vt, to abuse power for money, esp. in re abuse of minors. Ex: 'I'll ciavarella any kid for enough dough."
'conahaned': adj., (1) to have been deprived of one's rights by corrupt judicial conduct; (2) mistreated for pecuniary gain. Ex: 'Those kids and their families were conahaned.'
This might keep the [dis]honorable judges' names in the public consciousness, with suitable connotation.
So these guys can expect to be sentenced as if they had copied a couple of CDs. Go figure.
Yes, this should potentially be a capital crime.
I wonder if any rationalizations they employed for it have come to light, or if they didn't even care to justify their own actions to themselves in any way?
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Perhaps the most pernicious aspect of the federalization of the business of prosecuting crimes is that traditional state matters -- protecting children, protecting the integrity of justice, preventing violence against the person -- simply get ignored as crimes are increasingly recast into a federalizable lens in order to be federally prosecutable.
Perceiving the essence of an offense like this as being a mere commercial fraud, punishable as nothing more than a commerical fraud, is nothing short of a perversion of justices. Prosecuting this way announces to the public that we are a society that values protecting money from loss far more than we value protecting children or justice.
If I were the judge, I would refuse to accept the proposed plea agreement. The proposed agreement demeans justice. It is simply not reasonable for a crime as serious as this to to punished this lightly.
Bring serious charges -- kidnapping, for example -- reflecting that these are crimes of violence and crimes against justice. Don't accept a plea bargaining permitting a sentence less than the sum of all illegal sentences given. Take this one to trial if need be. And if the feds don't have laws that can treat a matter like this as a serious matter, prosecute it as a state matter.
This is a serious crime, not a federal one.
2. "This is a serious crime, not a federal one." I fail to see the contradiction. Federal crimes can be serious -- many result in life sentences or more. They should be prosecuted for conspiracy to deprive citizens of their civil rights, and sent to prison for a long time. 20 to 30 years, I am thinking.
BTW, the Court could order restitution as part of the criminal sentence. That would be a way to compensate the victims.
Because it's part of the story. And seems to follow a pattern: Kilpatrick, Blagojevich and now these two idiots.
If the two judges had by chance happened to be Republicans, and Bush was still in power, I'm sure we'd be all too aware what party the corrupt judges belonged to.
And I knew from the moment the story was reported that the judges were Democrats. It wasn't exactly a secret. - Syd Henderson
But hardly well known to the general public. I still fail to understand your hypersensitivity to the issue though.
I really don't understand the point of the civil rights laws. If stuff like this and Mike Nifong doesn't fall under the scope of civil rights laws, what's their point? Why aren't these kinds of actions criminalized on a federal level?
They are, and several pertinent laws are cited above. The real question is why these federal crimes aren't prosecuted.
Might set a precedent. Crooked judges being sent away...? Where will it all end?
And why aren't the honest lawyers, law professors and judges doing (note the assumption...) doing something about it in:
Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Kentucky, New York, Illinois, Rhode Island, parts of Texas and Florida...
See my previous.
This particular case is so easy. That is, nobody involved had to be geniuses, or make multi-layered plans, that the only reason it isn't done more is scruples--coughsnork--not the degree of difficulty.
Be interesting to have somebody look into every single locality where there is a for-profit juvy. Just for starters.
Over the last 30 years millions of illegal immigrants streamed across our borders and the Federal Government chose not to prosecute them. By selectively deciding which laws to enforce the Federal Government promotes and Protects it's "Culture of Corruption". This is apparently more important that protecting it's citizens.
Breaking the law is no longer a crime. Breaking a law that Nancy Pelosi's "Culture of Corruption" decides to prosecute is a crime. If you you aren't pr0secuted, you just get something (like 2.7 million dollars or free medical care) for nothing.
Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Kentucky, New York, Illinois, Rhode Island, parts of Texas and Florida..."
Perhaps there aren't any?
That's a point. Luzerne County school adminstrators, and possibly school board members, had to be in on it too. Which means more people who will have to pay everything they have for decades as co-conspirators liable for all the judgment. Plus the school districts will have respondeat superior liability for all but the punitive and treble RICO damages.
Why it has been characterized as a kind of fraud akin to commercial crimes or ordinary white-collar corruption rather than involving civil rights, kidnapping, or slavery and involuntary servitude? The decision to cast it in one light vs. the other may reflect a lack of vision or perspective (or common sense or sense of morality and justice) in execution, rather than a problem of jurisdiction.
I agree with the commenter who doesn't dare say on the internet what appropriate punishment should be.
There should be a lot more interest in the private companies paying the kickbacks.
In a number of small Texas towns motorists are arrested on fictitious charges, then have their possessions confiscated under Texas's forfeiture laws. The motorists are coerced into not contesting the forfeitures in return for charges being dropped.
They took almost anything, even the driver's sneakers.
The mayor of Tenaha, George Bowers, defended the seizures as a good way for a cash poor town to fund police dept purchase of more patrol cars.
According to Grits, Tenaha is not the only town.
My guess is the local bar needs more evidence. Until the case is proven, any reaction would be previous.
The detention facility companies, their owners and officers, and the chief probation officer of Luzerne County are all named defendants in the civil class actions filed last week.
Is there criminal action pending against them, as well?
I know nothing of other criminal charges. I printed the civil complaints from links in a story linked above. But, given the news stories in the above links, and from reading the civil complaints, I suspect there are pending criminal charges against the non-judicial defendants and that plea bargaining is underway.
It's SOP in this situation for the rats to compete in ratting on each other. I also think the voters of Luzerne County need a real painful lesson about the cost of tolerating political corruption.
... and I hope these two (for the record, and for the benefit of Internet readers in the 22nd century, and to insure that their names do not disappear from the List of the Wicked, the judges in question were Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and Judge Michael T. Conahan. two Democrats that the NY Times feels does not warrant a mention) get the punishment they so truly deserve.
There, fixed that for you.
I believe the good citizens of Durham are, likewise, going to be finding out what it costs to screw around with people. Difference is, in Durham, railroading rich white jocks was supposed to be a spectator sport with free admission.
In this case, it was merely watching the incredible (three months in juvie for mocking a 'crat???) without questioning that is going to cost them.
I suspect those rich white jocks have done a great service for the poor black folks of Durham.
His Durham-in-Wonderland blog was fantastic.
I don't know when the guy sleeps.
yes, that too.
and like i said, we have seen an expansion, at least of ATTEMPTS to prosecute and prohibit various forms of speech that are CLEARLY first amendment protected and/or should be, at least partially due to the war on domestic violence and the overbroad and kneejerk legislation we have seen related to the internet (this also being partially a result of the war on domestic violence).
my state's Cyberstalking statute (RCW 9.61.260) would not apply to what the kid did, since she put up demeaning info on her page, but did not demean the person by contacting them via the internet.
however, look at the text of RCW 9.61.260 and tell me if it doesn't SCREAM to you - overbroad kneejerk legislation, and definitely has 1st amendment issues.
in brief, it is a CRIME in my state to innted to embarass somebody and contact them electronically while using indecent langauge, for instance.
so, if sally emails johnny and says "you are a #A$#$(# johnny and your penis is very small" (the penis comment surely clear evidence of an intent to embarass), that's a CRIME!
this is the kind of crap, "bullying laws" (in this case cyberbullying) that many, especially on the left are all gung ho for, right up there with hate crime laws, and while i have not personally witnessed any prosecutions for them, they are so prone to abuse.
1) A person is guilty of cyberstalking if he or she, with intent to harass, intimidate, torment, or embarrass any other person, and under circumstances not constituting telephone harassment, makes an electronic communication to such other person or a third party:
(a) Using any lewd, lascivious, indecent, or obscene words, images, or language, or suggesting the commission of any lewd or lascivious act;
(b) Anonymously or repeatedly whether or not conversation occurs; or
(c) Threatening to inflict injury on the person or property of the person called or any member of his or her family or household.
(2) Cyberstalking is a gross misdemeanor, except as provided in subsection (3) of this section.
So, having a salty email conversation with anybody about how Councilman Snort should be embarrassed for behaving like a jackass at the last city council meeting, constitutes "cyberstalking".
Nick
I was a parent, too. Eventually, an interested parent, including one whose kids aren't in trouble, gets the point.
And, given the last few years, a "closed" proceeding is one about which nobody was particularly curious.
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