Update: Child selling judges convictions thrown out

[Lord of the Abyss]

An update to a story I posted about early in the year.

State's high court dismisses juvenile convictions
Friday, October 30, 2009
The Associated Press
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court yesterday dismissed thousands of juvenile convictions issued by a judge charged in a corruption scandal, saying that none of the young offenders got a fair hearing.

The high court yesterday threw out more than five years' worth of juvenile cases heard by disgraced former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, who is charged with accepting millions of dollars in kickbacks to send youths to private detention centers.

The Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, which represents some of the youths, said the court's order covers as many as 6,500 cases. The justices barred any possibility of retrial in all but a fraction of them.

"This is exactly the relief these kids needed," said Marsha Levick, the center's legal director. "It's the most serious judicial corruption scandal in our history and the court took an extraordinary step in addressing it."

The Supreme Court had previously overturned hundreds of juvenile convictions involving low-level offenses. Yesterday's ruling covered all cases heard by Mr. Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, including ones involving more serious crimes.

Children routinely appeared in front of Mr. Ciavarella without lawyers for hearings that lasted only a few minutes. Mr. Ciavarella also failed to question young defendants to make sure they fully understood the consequences of waiving counsel and pleading guilty, showing "complete disregard for the constitutional rights of the juveniles," the Supreme Court said.

After being found delinquent, the youths were often shackled and taken to private jails whose owner was paying bribes to the judge. Federal prosecutors have said that Mr. Ciavarella and another Luzerne County judge, Michael Conahan, took a total of $2.8 million in payoffs.

"Ciavarella's admission that he received these payments, and that he failed to disclose his financial interests arising from the development of the juvenile facilities, thoroughly undermines the integrity of all juvenile proceedings before Ciavarella," the Supreme Court said.

The judges pleaded guilty in February to honest services fraud and tax evasion in a deal with prosecutors that called for a sentence of 87 months in prison. But the deal was rejected in August by Senior U.S. District Judge Edward M. Kosik, who said the two hadn't fully accepted responsibility for the crimes, and the ex-judges switched their pleas to not guilty.

A federal grand jury then returned a 48-count racketeering indictment against the judges, who await trial.

The Supreme Court had previously overturned hundreds of juvenile convictions involving low-level offenses. Yesterday's ruling covered all cases heard by Mr. Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, including ones involving more serious crimes.

"We fully agree that, given the nature and extent of the taint, this Court simply cannot have confidence that any juvenile matter adjudicated by Ciavarella during this period was tried in a fair and impartial manner," the court wrote.

Prosecutors in Luzerne County had agreed that none of the convictions should stand, but they wanted the right to bring dangerous offenders back into court for retrials.

The court said the district attorney's office may seek to retry youths who remain under court supervision -- a group that Levick said likely numbers fewer than 100. And those youths may challenge any attempt to retry them on double-jeopardy grounds, the court said.

Berks County Senior Judge Arthur Grim, whom the justices appointed in February to review cases handled by Ciavarella, will consider any retrial requests made by the DA's office and forward his recommendations to the high court.

Thought I'd post this as a followup, for anyone interested. Probably the closest thing to a happy ending that was likely to happen.

[Darth Fanboy]

Oh thank the maker! You're thread title had me scared that the convictions of the judges had been thrown out and that they were going to walk.

[Molyneux]

Oh thank the maker! You're thread title had me scared that the convictions of the judges had been thrown out and that they were going to walk.

Ditto, ditto.
I don't have any legal background, but I do hope that these kids (or their parents) can sue the bastards for...what would it be? Wrongful imprisonment?

[Serafina]

Wasn't there a similar case somewhere? At least some dusty corner of my mind thinks so.

Either way, i hope that bastard gets what he deserves. Conviction is bad enough for ones life, especially during ones youth, but imprisonment is even worse.
AFAIK, he is guilty of misuse of power, wrongfull convition&imprisonment and propably even more.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Oh thank the maker! You're thread title had me scared that the convictions of the judges had been thrown out and that they were going to walk.

< facepalm>

Oops; that interpretation of my wording never occurred to me. Sorry for any raised blood pressure I inflicted on anyone.

[Crown]

I hope they throw the book at these guys ... wow, I just made myself groan, didn't think it was possible!

[The Yosemite Bear]

yeah, I read that the same way too.

I also recall our own tabloid cases with law enforcement here in the park, or say in Arizonia, with a certain Sheriiff. God, that story sounds like Law and Order SVU....

[Shroom Man 777]

A judge got paid to send children to jail? Why? That's horrible, what kind of shit is that? Why would anyone pay for imprisoned children? Why the hell would prison owners pay for more kids to send to their jails?

This is a complete fucking disgrace.

EDIT:

I like how in this and the previous thread, a lot of the replies and reactions were less visceral than those threads about puppies being kicked by sadists. I mean, in this and the previous thread of children being unjustly jailed, a lot of people just talked about corruption and how expensive or inexpensive the bribes were.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

A judge got paid to send children to jail? Why? That's horrible, what kind of shit is that? Why would anyone pay for imprisoned children? Why the hell would prison owners pay for more kids to send to their jails?

As I understand the system, they're private prisons, and they get payed by the government to take prisoners. Presumably, they get payed more than it costs to imprison a person, so they make a profit on each head. Thus, more convictions = more profit.

This is a complete fucking disgrace.

Yes, yes it is.

[ZGundam]

There was a Law & Order: SVU episode that matched this exactly. Judge was taking bribes to send kids in Family Court to this detention center run by a relative. And it ended just like this one.

[Lord of the Abyss]

There was a Law & Order: SVU episode that matched this exactly. Judge was taking bribes to send kids in Family Court to this detention center run by a relative. And it ended just like this one.

Quite likely based on this story; a lot of shows base their plots to some degree on real life occurrences. For example, I recall CSI having an episode where someone crashed into a pedestrian, drove home to their garage and left them lying seriously injured and stuck halfway though the windshield, dying over several days. Based on a true story ( I recall they changed the gender of the perpetrator to male, and a few other details ).

[Darth Yan]

Cold Case based the season premire of their 5th season on the west memphis 3 case. In the end of the episode it turns out it was the father of one of the victims who was the murderer, and not the two freaky loner teens (in real life, many suspect that it was the stepfather of one the boys who committed the murders.)

[Darth Fanboy]

EDIT:

I like how in this and the previous thread, a lot of the replies and reactions were less visceral than those threads about puppies being kicked by sadists. I mean, in this and the previous thread of children being unjustly jailed, a lot of people just talked about corruption and how expensive or inexpensive the bribes were.

The nature of the crimes are different. They're both horrible, but in this case with the judges they're being greedy and corrupt, and people are generally not surprised when they find out that other people, especially political figures are corrupt and greedy. But those assholes are in it for money, and these kids getting a few years in a juvenile detention center is not a physical injury like injuring or killing an animal. Corruption is awful, but abusing or torturing animals is linked with far more disturbing behaviors that will always get a more visceral response.

If I were to tell you that a landlord was finding ways to evict families from apartments so that he could bring in tenants that would pay a higher rent you'd probably be disgusted, but if I told you that someone was walking the streets and mutilating cats with a rusty kitchen knife would you really think that the landlord is more psychopathic?