WHAT HEELS: A Court Of Law, Not Of Justice
The New York Times describes a massive miscarriage of justice between 2000 and 2008 in Luzerne County, PA, that is nothing if not Kafkaesque (“[p]arents who arrived with their children typically left without them”):
Proceedings on average took less than two minutes. Detention center workers were told in advance how many juveniles to expect at the end of each day - even before hearings to determine their innocence or guilt.
Lawyers told families not to bother hiring them. They would not be allowed to speak anyway.
Last month, the law caught up with Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., 58, who ran that juvenile court for 12 years, and Judge Michael T. Conahan, 56, a colleague on the county’s Court of Common Pleas.
In what authorities are calling the biggest legal scandal in state history, the two judges pleaded guilty to tax evasion and wire fraud in a scheme that involved sending thousands of juveniles to two private detention centers in exchange for $2.6 million in kickbacks.
Probation officers say they suspected that something was amiss but were overruled every time they requested lighter sentences or for sentences to be served at home. …
Prosecutors say that by sentencing juveniles to detention at twice the state average, Judge Ciavarella was holding up his end of the bargain. And by late 2003, so much money was rolling in that the two judges were struggling to hide it all. So in 2004, they bought a $785,000 condominium together in Florida to help conceal the payments, and they began disguising transactions as rent and other related fees.
The state Supreme Court overturned the convictions of several hundred juveniles sentenced by Judge Ciavarella for “offenses as minor as stealing change from cars and writing prank notes,” reports The Associated Press.
Ciavarella and Conahan reached a plea deal with prosecutors and will each be sentenced to more than seven years in prison in the coming weeks.
Too bad we can't sign these two up for 38 calibre vasectomies. They should be sued by each parent on behalf of each juvenile for the tort of false imprisonment and whatever legal boilerplate you can throw at them. As was explained to me by an attorney years ago and may still be valid, because these were deliberate torts, they can't declare bancruptcy and get out of them. You essentially get a lien on their lives. Since all the emotionally satisfying punishments violate the Eighth Amendment, this works for me.
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