Juvenile Justice News
One in Four Youth Detained by Corrupt Pennsylvania Judges
In February 2009, two judges in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, pled guilty and resigned from the court and the state bar as part of an ongoing federal investigation. The judges were accused of accepting kickbacks totaling $2.6 million between 2003 and 2007 in exchange for sending youth to newly built detention centers run by Pennsylvania Child Care and Western Pennsylvania Child Care.
Under a plea bargain, the county’s presiding judge, Mark Ciavarella Jr., 58, and a retired senior judge, Michael Conahan, 56, agreed to 87-month prison sentences.
After the facility opened, the county's annual spending on juvenile placements spiraled from $2.7 million in 2002 to $7.3 million in 2004, according to the Associated Press.
Over a period of five years, Luzerne County detained approximately 26 percent of the youth who appeared before its juvenile court – considerably more than the state average of 10 percent.
Judge Ciavarella routinely ignored requests for leniency, even when they were made by prosecutors and probation officers. His record for harsh treatment of juveniles had already made him a focus of complaints by youth advocacy groups.
In early 2007, the Pennsylvania-based Juvenile Law Center began investigating irregularities in Luzerne County. It found that hundreds of youth had been tried, convicted and, in many cases, placed in residential programs – all without the benefit of counsel.
On average, 4 percent of youth in Pennsylvania participate in a juvenile court hearing without an attorney present. In Luzerne County, youth were going without counsel 38 percent to 50 percent of the time.
In April 2008, the Juvenile Law Center filed an application with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, asking it to provide relief for those youth. The court denied the application at first, but reconsidered after the disclosure in January 2009 of the allegations against the two judges.
According to the New York Times, Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim of Berks County, appointed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to investigate whether a “travesty of juvenile justice” had occurred, ordered that judgments be vacated and records expunged in all cases from 2003 to 2008 in which youth were not represented by a lawyer and did not knowingly waive the right to counsel. The order covered cases involving relatively minor offenses like third-degree misdemeanors.
The Juvenile Law Center has added Luzerne County as a defendant in its juvenile rights lawsuit, alleging that county officials failed their obligation to prevent Ciavarella from violating juveniles’ right to have an attorney present at court hearings. In addition to Judges Ciaveralla and Conahan, the suit also names as defendants: Gregory Zappala, Cindy Ciavarella, Barbara Conahan, Robert Powell, Robert Mericle, Mericle Construction, Mid-Atlantic Youth Services, PA Child Care, Western PA Child Care, Pinnacle Group of Jupiter, Vision Holdings and Beverage Marketing of Pennsylvania.
The suit is one of four federal lawsuits pending against Ciavarella and Conahan.
For all recent information on this ongoing story visit the Luzerne County Update Center.
< JDAI Newsletter