By Gloria Gomez
Updated: Friday, 05 Jun 2009, 6:40 AM EDT
Published : Friday, 05 Jun 2009, 6:39 AM EDT
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/local/polk/juvenile_court_restraint_rules_060509
BARTOW - The four Walker Middle School teens accused of sexually assaulting a flag football teammate were in court Wednesday.
After pleading not guilty the boys were handcuffed as they left the courtroom.
The images of young defendants some as young as 11-years-old in shackles and handcuffs are common in the juvenile court system. But that may be changing.
Shondi Cole, the Juvenile Division Chief in Polk County, says there is a big push to ban the indiscriminate use of handcuffs and shackles in juvenile court.
Cole says she finds the restraint rules in juvenile court and adult court confusing and backwards.
"The adults aren't shackled when they come to court so you could have a 10-year-old that came to court on a theft charge that's shackled and you could have an adult who killed someone who isn't shackled in court," Cole told FOX 13. "It makes no sense."
A proposed court rule would allow judges to use restraints on a case by case basis, rather than a blanket rule, but some argue it would increase the danger to everyone in court.
A Tampa mother who didn't want to give her name says her son has been in and out of jail for years. She believes putting restraints on a child can be psychologically damaging.
"It traumatizes them," she said. "All I think is it traumatizes them for the rest of their lives."
Right now States Chief Justice Peggy Quince is backing the proposed court rule which means if approved, there could less and less courtroom images of kids in cuffs.
Showing posts with label Juvenile Justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Juvenile Justice. Show all posts
Friday, June 5, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
PA: 2 Pa. judges sued in $2.6M kickback scheme
02/14/2009
Updated 02/14/2009 12:46:17 AM EST
http://www.heraldstandard.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20262334&BRD=2280&PAG=461&dept_id=480247&rfi=6
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - Two lawsuits have been filed against two Pennsylvania judges accused of taking more than $2 million in kickbacks to send youth offenders to privately run detention centers.
The suits name Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan as well as the individuals who allegedly paid the kickbacks and other defendants. They were filed in federal court late Thursday and Friday on behalf of hundreds of children and their families who were alleged victims of the corruption.
"At the hands of two grossly corrupt judges and several conspirators, hundreds of Pennsylvania children, their families and loved ones, were victimized and their civil rights violated," plaintiffs' attorney Michael Cefalo said in a statement Friday.
Prosecutors allege Ciavarella and Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, possibly tainting the convictions of thousands of juvenile offenders.
The judges pleaded guilty to fraud in federal court in Scranton on Thursday. Their plea agreements call for sentences of more than seven years in prison.
For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, was overly harsh and trampled on kids' constitutional rights. Ciavarella sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a statewide rate of one in 10.
"Ciavarella, in the most cynical fashion, assured that there would be ample juveniles adjudicated delinquent and placed in PA Child Care," one of the suits said. "As juvenile judge, he ignored law, ignored the constitution, and ignored basic human decency. He provided quick 'justice,' adjudicated children delinquent and ripped them from their parents in record time and in astonishing numbers."
The suits ask for monetary damages.
An attorney for Conahan declined to comment. Ciavarella's lawyer didn't immediately return a phone message.
The lead plaintiff in one lawsuit is Florence Wallace, whose 14-year-old daughter Bernadine was charged with terroristic threats after getting into an argument on MySpace. The lawsuit said the teenager was not advised of her right to an attorney and was pressured to plead guilty. She was taken from Ciavarella's courtroom in shackles and spent time in PA Child Care and at a youth wilderness camp.
As a result of the judges' corruption, parents were forced to pay for the "wrongful incarceration" of their children, the suit said. Some parents had their wages garnished, public assistance benefits taken and social security benefits seized.
In addition to the judges, plaintiffs in both suits are suing two individuals who allegedly paid the kickbacks: attorney Robert Powell, who co-owned PA Child Care LLC and Western PA Child Care LLC until last June; and Robert Mericle, who owns one of the largest commercial construction firms in northeastern Pennsylvania and built the detention centers.
Through an attorney, Powell has said he was the victim of extortion. A spokesman for Mericle has denied making payments "to influence a decision to secure a contract to build any PA Child Care facility."
Mericle's company was also named as a defendant.
Through a spokesman, PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care, which are also named as defendants, declined to comment. The detention centers' current owner, Gregory Zappala - another defendant - has said through an attorney that he had no knowledge of the payoffs.
U.S. Attorney Martin Carlson has notified lawyers for PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care that the facilities are not being targeted in the ongoing corruption probe and do not face indictment.
Both lawsuits seek class-action status in the case.
Both judges have been removed from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. On Friday, the high court, which had suspended Ciavarella with pay, terminated his pay and benefits. He had been making about $157,000 a year.
Conahan, who was semi-retired but still heard cases as a senior judge, has been stripped of his certification and may no longer receive per-diem pay.
Updated 02/14/2009 12:46:17 AM EST
http://www.heraldstandard.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20262334&BRD=2280&PAG=461&dept_id=480247&rfi=6
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - Two lawsuits have been filed against two Pennsylvania judges accused of taking more than $2 million in kickbacks to send youth offenders to privately run detention centers.
The suits name Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan as well as the individuals who allegedly paid the kickbacks and other defendants. They were filed in federal court late Thursday and Friday on behalf of hundreds of children and their families who were alleged victims of the corruption.
"At the hands of two grossly corrupt judges and several conspirators, hundreds of Pennsylvania children, their families and loved ones, were victimized and their civil rights violated," plaintiffs' attorney Michael Cefalo said in a statement Friday.
Prosecutors allege Ciavarella and Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, possibly tainting the convictions of thousands of juvenile offenders.
The judges pleaded guilty to fraud in federal court in Scranton on Thursday. Their plea agreements call for sentences of more than seven years in prison.
For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, was overly harsh and trampled on kids' constitutional rights. Ciavarella sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a statewide rate of one in 10.
"Ciavarella, in the most cynical fashion, assured that there would be ample juveniles adjudicated delinquent and placed in PA Child Care," one of the suits said. "As juvenile judge, he ignored law, ignored the constitution, and ignored basic human decency. He provided quick 'justice,' adjudicated children delinquent and ripped them from their parents in record time and in astonishing numbers."
The suits ask for monetary damages.
An attorney for Conahan declined to comment. Ciavarella's lawyer didn't immediately return a phone message.
The lead plaintiff in one lawsuit is Florence Wallace, whose 14-year-old daughter Bernadine was charged with terroristic threats after getting into an argument on MySpace. The lawsuit said the teenager was not advised of her right to an attorney and was pressured to plead guilty. She was taken from Ciavarella's courtroom in shackles and spent time in PA Child Care and at a youth wilderness camp.
As a result of the judges' corruption, parents were forced to pay for the "wrongful incarceration" of their children, the suit said. Some parents had their wages garnished, public assistance benefits taken and social security benefits seized.
In addition to the judges, plaintiffs in both suits are suing two individuals who allegedly paid the kickbacks: attorney Robert Powell, who co-owned PA Child Care LLC and Western PA Child Care LLC until last June; and Robert Mericle, who owns one of the largest commercial construction firms in northeastern Pennsylvania and built the detention centers.
Through an attorney, Powell has said he was the victim of extortion. A spokesman for Mericle has denied making payments "to influence a decision to secure a contract to build any PA Child Care facility."
Mericle's company was also named as a defendant.
Through a spokesman, PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care, which are also named as defendants, declined to comment. The detention centers' current owner, Gregory Zappala - another defendant - has said through an attorney that he had no knowledge of the payoffs.
U.S. Attorney Martin Carlson has notified lawyers for PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care that the facilities are not being targeted in the ongoing corruption probe and do not face indictment.
Both lawsuits seek class-action status in the case.
Both judges have been removed from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. On Friday, the high court, which had suspended Ciavarella with pay, terminated his pay and benefits. He had been making about $157,000 a year.
Conahan, who was semi-retired but still heard cases as a senior judge, has been stripped of his certification and may no longer receive per-diem pay.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
PA: Judges accused of jailing kids for cash
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM and MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press
February 11, 2009
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090211/ap_on_re_us/courthouse_kickbacks
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses.
The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench.
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.
The judges are scheduled to plead guilty to fraud Thursday in federal court. Their plea agreements call for sentences of more than seven years behind bars.
Ciavarella, 58, who presided over Luzerne County's juvenile court for 12 years, acknowledged last week in a letter to his former colleagues, "I have disgraced my judgeship. My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame." Ciavarella, though, has denied he got kickbacks for sending youths to prison.
Conahan, 56, has remained silent about the case.
Many Pennsylvania counties contract with privately run juvenile detention centers, paying them either a fixed overall fee or a certain amount per youth, per day.
In Luzerne County, prosecutors say, Conahan shut down the county-run juvenile prison in 2002 and helped the two companies secure rich contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, at least some of that dependent on how many juveniles were locked up.
One of the contracts — a 20-year agreement with PA Child Care worth an estimated $58 million — was later canceled by the county as exorbitant.
The judges are accused of taking payoffs between 2003 and 2006.
Robert J. Powell co-owned PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care until June. His attorney, Mark Sheppard, said his client was the victim of an extortion scheme.
"Bob Powell never solicited a nickel from these judges and really was a victim of their demands," he said. "These judges made it very plain to Mr. Powell that he was going to be required to pay certain monies."
For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Ciavarella was ridiculously harsh and ran roughshod over youngsters' constitutional rights. Ciavarella sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a statewide rate of one in 10.
The criminal charges confirmed the advocacy groups' worst suspicions and have called into question all the sentences he pronounced.
Hillary Transue did not have an attorney, nor was she told of her right to one, when she appeared in Ciavarella's courtroom in 2007 for building a MySpace page that lampooned her assistant principal.
Her mother, Laurene Transue, worked for 16 years in the child services department of another county and said she was certain Hillary would get a slap on the wrist. Instead, Ciavarella sentenced her to three months; she got out after a month, with help from a lawyer.
"I felt so disgraced for a while, like, what do people think of me now?" said Hillary, now 17 and a high school senior who plans to become an English teacher.
Laurene Transue said Ciavarella "was playing God. And not only was he doing that, he was getting money for it. He was betraying the trust put in him to do what is best for children."
Kurt Kruger, now 22, had never been in trouble with the law until the day police accused him of acting as a lookout while his friend shoplifted less than $200 worth of DVDs from Wal-Mart. He said he didn't know his friend was going to steal anything.
Kruger pleaded guilty before Ciavarella and spent three days in a company-run juvenile detention center, plus four months at a youth wilderness camp run by a different operator.
"Never in a million years did I think that I would actually get sent away. I was completely destroyed," said Kruger, who later dropped out of school. He said he wants to get his record expunged, earn his high school equivalency diploma and go to college.
"I got a raw deal, and yeah, it's not fair," he said, "but now it's 100 times bigger than me."
February 11, 2009
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090211/ap_on_re_us/courthouse_kickbacks
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses.
The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench.
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.
The judges are scheduled to plead guilty to fraud Thursday in federal court. Their plea agreements call for sentences of more than seven years behind bars.
Ciavarella, 58, who presided over Luzerne County's juvenile court for 12 years, acknowledged last week in a letter to his former colleagues, "I have disgraced my judgeship. My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame." Ciavarella, though, has denied he got kickbacks for sending youths to prison.
Conahan, 56, has remained silent about the case.
Many Pennsylvania counties contract with privately run juvenile detention centers, paying them either a fixed overall fee or a certain amount per youth, per day.
In Luzerne County, prosecutors say, Conahan shut down the county-run juvenile prison in 2002 and helped the two companies secure rich contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, at least some of that dependent on how many juveniles were locked up.
One of the contracts — a 20-year agreement with PA Child Care worth an estimated $58 million — was later canceled by the county as exorbitant.
The judges are accused of taking payoffs between 2003 and 2006.
Robert J. Powell co-owned PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care until June. His attorney, Mark Sheppard, said his client was the victim of an extortion scheme.
"Bob Powell never solicited a nickel from these judges and really was a victim of their demands," he said. "These judges made it very plain to Mr. Powell that he was going to be required to pay certain monies."
For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Ciavarella was ridiculously harsh and ran roughshod over youngsters' constitutional rights. Ciavarella sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a statewide rate of one in 10.
The criminal charges confirmed the advocacy groups' worst suspicions and have called into question all the sentences he pronounced.
Hillary Transue did not have an attorney, nor was she told of her right to one, when she appeared in Ciavarella's courtroom in 2007 for building a MySpace page that lampooned her assistant principal.
Her mother, Laurene Transue, worked for 16 years in the child services department of another county and said she was certain Hillary would get a slap on the wrist. Instead, Ciavarella sentenced her to three months; she got out after a month, with help from a lawyer.
"I felt so disgraced for a while, like, what do people think of me now?" said Hillary, now 17 and a high school senior who plans to become an English teacher.
Laurene Transue said Ciavarella "was playing God. And not only was he doing that, he was getting money for it. He was betraying the trust put in him to do what is best for children."
Kurt Kruger, now 22, had never been in trouble with the law until the day police accused him of acting as a lookout while his friend shoplifted less than $200 worth of DVDs from Wal-Mart. He said he didn't know his friend was going to steal anything.
Kruger pleaded guilty before Ciavarella and spent three days in a company-run juvenile detention center, plus four months at a youth wilderness camp run by a different operator.
"Never in a million years did I think that I would actually get sent away. I was completely destroyed," said Kruger, who later dropped out of school. He said he wants to get his record expunged, earn his high school equivalency diploma and go to college.
"I got a raw deal, and yeah, it's not fair," he said, "but now it's 100 times bigger than me."
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
PA: State Supreme Court steps in
BY MICHAEL R. SISAK
STAFF WRITER
Published: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 8:45 AM EST
http://www.citizensvoice.com/articles/2009/02/03/news/wb_voice.20090203.t.pg4.cv03cdjudgesjuveniles_s1.2276820_top2.txt
The state Supreme Court will immediately review the cases of hundreds of young defendants who passed through the Luzerne County court system while Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. allegedly accepted payoffs to facilitate the development of a juvenile detention center, Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille said Monday.
“The court views this matter with grave concern,” Castille said in a statement.
Federal prosecutors charged Ciavarella, the former president judge, and Senior Judge Michael T. Conahan last Monday with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit tax fraud, and accused them of collecting $2.6 million between January 2003 to April 2007 from the co-owner and developer of a juvenile detention center in Pittston Township and a similar facility in Butler County.
Under plea agreements, Ciavarella and Conahan must serve 87 months in federal prison and must resign their positions as judges within 10 days of their plea.
The Juvenile Law Center, a Philadelphia-based advocacy group, requested intervention from the state Supreme Court last Friday, two weeks after the court denied an earlier petition for relief. The Supreme Court did not elaborate on its denial.
In the original petition, filed last April, the Juvenile Law Center accused Ciavarella of ignoring rules of procedure and violating young defendants’ due process rights by running them through the system without legal representation.
In the revised filing, attorneys for the Juvenile Law Center asked the state Supreme Court to reconsider and amend the original application, “as this case is now about the wholesale subversion of the Luzerne County juvenile justice system over many years.”
“In light of the information revealed by the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and the expanded petition filed by the Juvenile Law Center, we will exercise our King’s Bench and constitutional supervisory powers in this matter,” Castille said.
In exercising its King’s Bench and supervisory powers, the Court takes a case for immediate review and out of the normal channels of litigation in the lower courts, said Stuart Ditzen, a spokesman for the Administrative Office for Pennsylvania Courts. This occurs rarely and only when the Court sees a matter of immediate public importance at stake, he said.
Marsha Levick, the legal director of the Juvenile Law Center, applauded the Supreme Court’s decision to intervene.
“We are extremely pleased that the court is stepping in and that they recognized the extreme public importance of the issues that are at stake here,” Levick said.
Attorneys for the Juvenile Law Center filed the revised petition on behalf of all juveniles who were subjected to delinquency proceedings in Luzerne County between the beginning of 2003 and May 23, 2008, the day Ciavarella stepped aside from the juvenile court.
The state Supreme Court removed Ciavarella from all judicial duties last Wednesday and revoked Conahan’s certificate, barring him from serving as a senior judge.
According to the state Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission, 5,210 of the young defendants who appeared in Luzerne County Juvenile Court between 2003 and 2006 were deemed delinquent.
In 2006, the last year for which data is available, 1,101 defendants were deemed delinquent and 398 were placed in a secure juvenile detention facility.
In 2003, 778 of the 1,499 delinquent juveniles were placed in secure detention. In 2004, the rate was 914 of 1,369 and in 2005, 491 of 1,241.
“We look forward to finally achieving justice for the kids affected by this in Luzerne County,” Levick said.
msisak@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2061
STAFF WRITER
Published: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 8:45 AM EST
http://www.citizensvoice.com/articles/2009/02/03/news/wb_voice.20090203.t.pg4.cv03cdjudgesjuveniles_s1.2276820_top2.txt
The state Supreme Court will immediately review the cases of hundreds of young defendants who passed through the Luzerne County court system while Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. allegedly accepted payoffs to facilitate the development of a juvenile detention center, Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille said Monday.
“The court views this matter with grave concern,” Castille said in a statement.
Federal prosecutors charged Ciavarella, the former president judge, and Senior Judge Michael T. Conahan last Monday with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit tax fraud, and accused them of collecting $2.6 million between January 2003 to April 2007 from the co-owner and developer of a juvenile detention center in Pittston Township and a similar facility in Butler County.
Under plea agreements, Ciavarella and Conahan must serve 87 months in federal prison and must resign their positions as judges within 10 days of their plea.
The Juvenile Law Center, a Philadelphia-based advocacy group, requested intervention from the state Supreme Court last Friday, two weeks after the court denied an earlier petition for relief. The Supreme Court did not elaborate on its denial.
In the original petition, filed last April, the Juvenile Law Center accused Ciavarella of ignoring rules of procedure and violating young defendants’ due process rights by running them through the system without legal representation.
In the revised filing, attorneys for the Juvenile Law Center asked the state Supreme Court to reconsider and amend the original application, “as this case is now about the wholesale subversion of the Luzerne County juvenile justice system over many years.”
“In light of the information revealed by the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and the expanded petition filed by the Juvenile Law Center, we will exercise our King’s Bench and constitutional supervisory powers in this matter,” Castille said.
In exercising its King’s Bench and supervisory powers, the Court takes a case for immediate review and out of the normal channels of litigation in the lower courts, said Stuart Ditzen, a spokesman for the Administrative Office for Pennsylvania Courts. This occurs rarely and only when the Court sees a matter of immediate public importance at stake, he said.
Marsha Levick, the legal director of the Juvenile Law Center, applauded the Supreme Court’s decision to intervene.
“We are extremely pleased that the court is stepping in and that they recognized the extreme public importance of the issues that are at stake here,” Levick said.
Attorneys for the Juvenile Law Center filed the revised petition on behalf of all juveniles who were subjected to delinquency proceedings in Luzerne County between the beginning of 2003 and May 23, 2008, the day Ciavarella stepped aside from the juvenile court.
The state Supreme Court removed Ciavarella from all judicial duties last Wednesday and revoked Conahan’s certificate, barring him from serving as a senior judge.
According to the state Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission, 5,210 of the young defendants who appeared in Luzerne County Juvenile Court between 2003 and 2006 were deemed delinquent.
In 2006, the last year for which data is available, 1,101 defendants were deemed delinquent and 398 were placed in a secure juvenile detention facility.
In 2003, 778 of the 1,499 delinquent juveniles were placed in secure detention. In 2004, the rate was 914 of 1,369 and in 2005, 491 of 1,241.
“We look forward to finally achieving justice for the kids affected by this in Luzerne County,” Levick said.
msisak@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2061
Thursday, January 29, 2009
PA: Luzerne judge broke his vow to reform
NOTE: "Luzerne County District Attorney Jacqueline Musto Carroll, who assisted with the investigation into the judges, said last year that the case lacked merit because it identified only a handful of juveniles who were affected."
This is how the justice system works in PA....ignore "and justice for all" in favor of "and justice only if you're lucky to have been one of a significant number abused by a corrupt system..."
Every system I've worked with in PA is like this....hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil...until the "evil" is so rampant it can no longer be hidden away; so it becomes more of a positive PR stunt that anything else....when they have no choice but to fix one series of problems to divert attention from the numerous others...
Posted on Wed, Jan. 28, 2009
By John Sullivan Inquirer Staff Writer
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/38520577.html
Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. said he'd never do it again.
In 2000, the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia accused the Luzerne County Juvenile Court judge of detaining a 13-year-old boy without informing him of his constitutional right to an attorney.
A state court agreed.
"Even if they come in and tell me that they don't want a lawyer, they're going to have one," Ciavarella told the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader in 2001.
Yet for years afterward, Ciavarella repeatedly violated the rights of hundreds of children by shipping them to a juvenile center without telling them they had the right to an attorney, according to a petition to the state Supreme Court filed by the Juvenile Law Center.
On Monday, Ciavarella and another judge said they would plead guilty to charges that they hid $2.6 million in secret payments from one of the centers' owners and a construction contractor.
The charges include allegations that the judges locked up juveniles at the detention centers even when probation officers recommended against it.
Through an attorney yesterday, Ciavarella declined to comment on allegations by the law center that he violated the rights of juvenile offenders by failing to tell them of their legal rights.
In a statement, Ciavarella's attorney, Al Flora Jr., said the judge denied sending any child to a detention center because of money.
The revelations renewed the controversy over Ciavarella's court practices and have prompted the juvenile center in Philadelphia, which filed both petitions, to consider further moves, including an appeal to a federal court.
"There are hundreds of kids whose constitutional rights have been violated in the most flagrant way," said Marsha L. Levick, the center's legal director.
"It was stunning to us that the same judge was still doing the same thing" he was doing in 2000, she said.
The case revolves around two child care centers: PA Child Care L.L.C. and Western PA Child Care L.L.C., both of which opened in the last few years.
Federal authorities allege that Ciavarella and another Luzerne County Court judge, Michael T. Conahan, accepted payment from two people, identified as Participant 1 and Participant 2 in the federal charges.
Participant 1 is described as a Luzerne County lawyer who conducted business as PA Child Care L.L.C.
PA Child Care was owned at the time by Butler County lawyer Robert A. Powell and Pittsburgh-area investment banker Gregory R. Zappala, according to the state Department of Public Welfare.
Powell sold his interest in the facility to Zappala in June 2008, after the alleged illegal activity occurred.
An attorney for Powell, who has not been charged, said his client had no comment. Officials with PA Child Care did not return a call seeking comment from Zappala. Zappala is not accused of any wrongdoing.
Participant 2 is identified as a contractor who was a friend of Ciavarella's who built the center.
The charges also allege that the judges removed funding from a competing county facility that they said was unsafe and helped secure deals that reaped the new detention facilities millions of dollars.
In an audit, the DPW found that PA Child Care earned an excessive profit and that the county could have built three detention centers for the cost of what it paid to PA Child Care.
Now, the Juvenile Law Center is considering reprising its petition to the state Supreme Court, which declined to hear it this month. It may also consider a civil action.
"You have, arguably, a rogue judge acting outside the requirements and obligations of his office, making decisions influenced by financial remuneration on the backs of children," Levick said. "That's something the Supreme Court ought to want to fix."
The Juvenile Law Center was joined in its 2008 case by the DPW. In a brief, the welfare department said the rate at which juveniles were unrepresented by attorneys in Luzerne County was 10 times the state average and "so dramatic as to require inference of a systematic deprivation of the constitutional rights of accused juveniles by the Luzerne County Court."
The state also noted that out-of-home placements in the county were 21/2 times higher than the state average, a number that would surely have been lower if more juveniles had attorneys, Corbett said.
State Attorney General Tom Corbett also filed a brief saying that 60 percent of the youths who did not have attorneys landed in detention centers. He said the allegations raised serious concerns about the fairness and integrity of the proceedings.
Luzerne County District Attorney Jacqueline Musto Carroll, who assisted with the investigation into the judges, said last year that the case lacked merit because it identified only a handful of juveniles who were affected.
One case the juvenile law center cited in its petition was that of high school student Jessica Van Reeth, a good student who had never been in trouble before she was caught with a lighter and a marijuana pipe.
She and her father did not recall signing a waiver of counsel. Van Reeth, who was 16, had been suspended from school for 10 days. A Juvenile Court officer recommended probation because she seemed like a good young person.
But in a 90-second hearing in 2007, Van Reeth admitted having the lighter and pipe. Ciavarella asked whether she had heard him speak at her school about drugs.
She had.
Ciavarella then sentenced her to three months in a wilderness camp.
Contact staff writer John Sullivan at 215-854-2473
This is how the justice system works in PA....ignore "and justice for all" in favor of "and justice only if you're lucky to have been one of a significant number abused by a corrupt system..."
Every system I've worked with in PA is like this....hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil...until the "evil" is so rampant it can no longer be hidden away; so it becomes more of a positive PR stunt that anything else....when they have no choice but to fix one series of problems to divert attention from the numerous others...
Posted on Wed, Jan. 28, 2009
By John Sullivan Inquirer Staff Writer
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/38520577.html
Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. said he'd never do it again.
In 2000, the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia accused the Luzerne County Juvenile Court judge of detaining a 13-year-old boy without informing him of his constitutional right to an attorney.
A state court agreed.
"Even if they come in and tell me that they don't want a lawyer, they're going to have one," Ciavarella told the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader in 2001.
Yet for years afterward, Ciavarella repeatedly violated the rights of hundreds of children by shipping them to a juvenile center without telling them they had the right to an attorney, according to a petition to the state Supreme Court filed by the Juvenile Law Center.
On Monday, Ciavarella and another judge said they would plead guilty to charges that they hid $2.6 million in secret payments from one of the centers' owners and a construction contractor.
The charges include allegations that the judges locked up juveniles at the detention centers even when probation officers recommended against it.
Through an attorney yesterday, Ciavarella declined to comment on allegations by the law center that he violated the rights of juvenile offenders by failing to tell them of their legal rights.
In a statement, Ciavarella's attorney, Al Flora Jr., said the judge denied sending any child to a detention center because of money.
The revelations renewed the controversy over Ciavarella's court practices and have prompted the juvenile center in Philadelphia, which filed both petitions, to consider further moves, including an appeal to a federal court.
"There are hundreds of kids whose constitutional rights have been violated in the most flagrant way," said Marsha L. Levick, the center's legal director.
"It was stunning to us that the same judge was still doing the same thing" he was doing in 2000, she said.
The case revolves around two child care centers: PA Child Care L.L.C. and Western PA Child Care L.L.C., both of which opened in the last few years.
Federal authorities allege that Ciavarella and another Luzerne County Court judge, Michael T. Conahan, accepted payment from two people, identified as Participant 1 and Participant 2 in the federal charges.
Participant 1 is described as a Luzerne County lawyer who conducted business as PA Child Care L.L.C.
PA Child Care was owned at the time by Butler County lawyer Robert A. Powell and Pittsburgh-area investment banker Gregory R. Zappala, according to the state Department of Public Welfare.
Powell sold his interest in the facility to Zappala in June 2008, after the alleged illegal activity occurred.
An attorney for Powell, who has not been charged, said his client had no comment. Officials with PA Child Care did not return a call seeking comment from Zappala. Zappala is not accused of any wrongdoing.
Participant 2 is identified as a contractor who was a friend of Ciavarella's who built the center.
The charges also allege that the judges removed funding from a competing county facility that they said was unsafe and helped secure deals that reaped the new detention facilities millions of dollars.
In an audit, the DPW found that PA Child Care earned an excessive profit and that the county could have built three detention centers for the cost of what it paid to PA Child Care.
Now, the Juvenile Law Center is considering reprising its petition to the state Supreme Court, which declined to hear it this month. It may also consider a civil action.
"You have, arguably, a rogue judge acting outside the requirements and obligations of his office, making decisions influenced by financial remuneration on the backs of children," Levick said. "That's something the Supreme Court ought to want to fix."
The Juvenile Law Center was joined in its 2008 case by the DPW. In a brief, the welfare department said the rate at which juveniles were unrepresented by attorneys in Luzerne County was 10 times the state average and "so dramatic as to require inference of a systematic deprivation of the constitutional rights of accused juveniles by the Luzerne County Court."
The state also noted that out-of-home placements in the county were 21/2 times higher than the state average, a number that would surely have been lower if more juveniles had attorneys, Corbett said.
State Attorney General Tom Corbett also filed a brief saying that 60 percent of the youths who did not have attorneys landed in detention centers. He said the allegations raised serious concerns about the fairness and integrity of the proceedings.
Luzerne County District Attorney Jacqueline Musto Carroll, who assisted with the investigation into the judges, said last year that the case lacked merit because it identified only a handful of juveniles who were affected.
One case the juvenile law center cited in its petition was that of high school student Jessica Van Reeth, a good student who had never been in trouble before she was caught with a lighter and a marijuana pipe.
She and her father did not recall signing a waiver of counsel. Van Reeth, who was 16, had been suspended from school for 10 days. A Juvenile Court officer recommended probation because she seemed like a good young person.
But in a 90-second hearing in 2007, Van Reeth admitted having the lighter and pipe. Ciavarella asked whether she had heard him speak at her school about drugs.
She had.
Ciavarella then sentenced her to three months in a wilderness camp.
Contact staff writer John Sullivan at 215-854-2473
PA: Editorial: Judges Sentenced
Kids for cash
Posted on Wed, Jan. 28, 2009
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20090128_Editorial__Judges_Sentenced.html
The setting is Pennsylvania coal country, but it's a story right out of Dickens' grim 19th-century landscape: Two of Luzerne County's most senior judges on Monday were accused of sending children to jail in return for kickbacks.
The judges, Luzerne County President Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., 58, and his predecessor, Senior Judge Michael T. Conahan, 56, will serve seven years in jail under a plea agreement.
They're alleged to have pocketed $2.6 million in payments from juvenile detention center operators.
When a federal judge reviews their plea, though, the question ought to be whether the punishment is adequate - along with the judges being bounced from the bench, disbarred, and losing their pensions.
If the allegations are true, Ciavarella and Conahan were involved in a disgraceful cabal far worse than one that merely lined their pockets.
First, the judges helped the detention centers land a county contract worth $58 million. Then their alleged scheme was to guarantee the operators a steady income by detaining juveniles, often on petty stuff.
Many of the kids were railroaded, according to allegations lodged with the state Supreme Court last year by the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, an advocacy group.
In asking the court to intervene in April, the law center cited hundreds of examples where teens accused of minor mischief were pressured to waive their right to lawyers, and then shipped to a detention center.
One teen was given a 90-day sentence for having parodied a school administrator online. Such unwarranted detentions left "both children and parents feeling bewildered, violated and traumatized," center lawyers said.
"Very few people would stand up" to the Luzerne judges, according to the law center's executive director, Robert G. Schwartz.
Fortunately, Juvenile Law Center was willing to do so, along with backing from state Attorney General Tom Corbett's office and the state Department of Public Welfare.
The blind justices on the state's high court, though, took a pass. Only last month, they offered no explanation in declining to take up the law center's request that the court step up.
Now, the state Supreme Court should revisit the issue, since the scope of corruption alleged at the Luzerne County Courthouse in Wilkes-Barre could further undermine confidence in the courts statewide.
Authorities need to redress running roughshod over juveniles' rights - a process also likely to bring damage suits. While the local district attorney pledges to "do our best to right the situation," this calls for an independent, outside review.
The two judges' downfall may have rooted out the worst perpetrators of this evil scheme, but the abuse of power alleged in Luzerne County is so startling that it should send shock waves for reform around the state court system.
Posted on Wed, Jan. 28, 2009
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20090128_Editorial__Judges_Sentenced.html
The setting is Pennsylvania coal country, but it's a story right out of Dickens' grim 19th-century landscape: Two of Luzerne County's most senior judges on Monday were accused of sending children to jail in return for kickbacks.
The judges, Luzerne County President Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., 58, and his predecessor, Senior Judge Michael T. Conahan, 56, will serve seven years in jail under a plea agreement.
They're alleged to have pocketed $2.6 million in payments from juvenile detention center operators.
When a federal judge reviews their plea, though, the question ought to be whether the punishment is adequate - along with the judges being bounced from the bench, disbarred, and losing their pensions.
If the allegations are true, Ciavarella and Conahan were involved in a disgraceful cabal far worse than one that merely lined their pockets.
First, the judges helped the detention centers land a county contract worth $58 million. Then their alleged scheme was to guarantee the operators a steady income by detaining juveniles, often on petty stuff.
Many of the kids were railroaded, according to allegations lodged with the state Supreme Court last year by the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, an advocacy group.
In asking the court to intervene in April, the law center cited hundreds of examples where teens accused of minor mischief were pressured to waive their right to lawyers, and then shipped to a detention center.
One teen was given a 90-day sentence for having parodied a school administrator online. Such unwarranted detentions left "both children and parents feeling bewildered, violated and traumatized," center lawyers said.
"Very few people would stand up" to the Luzerne judges, according to the law center's executive director, Robert G. Schwartz.
Fortunately, Juvenile Law Center was willing to do so, along with backing from state Attorney General Tom Corbett's office and the state Department of Public Welfare.
The blind justices on the state's high court, though, took a pass. Only last month, they offered no explanation in declining to take up the law center's request that the court step up.
Now, the state Supreme Court should revisit the issue, since the scope of corruption alleged at the Luzerne County Courthouse in Wilkes-Barre could further undermine confidence in the courts statewide.
Authorities need to redress running roughshod over juveniles' rights - a process also likely to bring damage suits. While the local district attorney pledges to "do our best to right the situation," this calls for an independent, outside review.
The two judges' downfall may have rooted out the worst perpetrators of this evil scheme, but the abuse of power alleged in Luzerne County is so startling that it should send shock waves for reform around the state court system.
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