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Poemer
Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Location: Mullae
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 Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 10:52 pm Post subject: Penn. Judges Get Kickbacks for Placing Youths in Privately O |
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Penn. Judges Get Kickbacks for Placing Youths in Privately Owned Jails
An excerpt:
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AMY GOODMAN: An unprecedented case of judicial corruption is unfolding in Pennsylvania. Several hundred families have filed a class-action lawsuit against two former judges who have pleaded guilty to taking bribes in return for placing youths in privately owned jails. Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan are said to have received $2.6 million for ensuring that juvenile suspects were jailed in prisons operated by the companies Pennsylvania Child Care and a sister company, Western Pennsylvania Child Care. Some of the young people were jailed over the objections of their probation officers. An estimated 5,000 juveniles have been sentenced by Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2002.
In addition to the jailing of the youths, the judges also admitted to helping �facilitate� the construction of private jails. The US attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Martin Carlson, unveiled the charges last month.
MARTIN CARLSON: These payments were made to the judges, it is alleged, in return for discretionary acts by the judges favoring these businesses, acts relating to the construction, expansion, operation of these juvenile facilities and acts relating to the placement of juveniles in these facilities.
AMY GOODMAN: On Thursday, Judges Ciavarella and Conahan entered guilty pleas on charges of wire fraud and income tax fraud. They�re currently free on a $1 million bail bond pending sentencing. Their plea agreements call for jail sentences of more than seven years. No charges have been filed against the private prisons that paid the bribes.
Pennsylvania�s Supreme Court has appointed an outside judge to review all the cases tried by Ciavarella and Conahan. But the case has prompted calls for broader reforms of the juvenile justice system in Pennsylvania and nationwide.
We�re joined now by two of the thousands of youths jailed by the corrupt judges. On the line with us from Scranton, Pennsylvania, eighteen-year-old Jamie Quinn is with us. She spent more than eleven months in a privately run juvenile prison camp after being sentenced by Judge Mark Ciavarella as a first-time offender. Also on the line in the nearby town of Wilkes-Barre is twenty-two-year-old Kurt Kruger. Another first-time offender, he spent more than four months in a privately run prison�juvenile prison camp after also being sentenced by Judge Ciavarella.
And joining us in a studio in Philadelphia is Bob Schwartz. He is a co-founder and executive director of the Juvenile Law Center, which helped expose the corrupt judges and is now involved in the class-action suit brought on behalf of the jailed youths� families.
We asked PA Child Care, the main private jail company linked to the bribes, to come on the broadcast. We were directed to an attorney who didn�t respond to our request.
Bob Schwartz, let�s start with you. When did all this begin to be revealed? How did it all happen?
BOB SCHWARTZ: Thanks, Amy, and thanks for having Kurt, Jamie and me on your show.
This has been going on, we believe, in Luzerne County since 2003. It came to Juvenile Law Center�s attention a couple of years ago, when we heard from the mother of one of the girls whom we ended up representing, a young woman named Hillary Transue, who was brought into court, found guilty, sent away for an internet parody of an assistant principal at her high school. Her mother found us, and when we were able to bring a habeas corpus petition on Hillary�s behalf, she told our attorneys that she wasn�t the only one who had been locked up by Judge Ciavarella, that there were lots of other kids in the same situation. That was a couple of years ago.
And we began investigating and found that Luzerne County had half of the waivers of counsel in Pennsylvania of all the cases in which lawyers were waived by young people in juvenile court. Hillary had, unknown to her, signed a paper, her mother had signed a paper, giving up her right to a lawyer. That made the 90-second hearing that she had in front of Judge Ciavarella pretty much of a kangaroo court. So, she was sent away. We investigated and last year, about a year ago, brought a petition before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court asking them to take a look at all of the cases in which kids were tried and adjudicated delinquent and many sent away without a lawyer. We thought that was the problem. That turned out to be the tip of the iceberg. When we filed, it turned out that the FBI began its investigation and found the corruption that you spoke about at the top of this segment.
AMY GOODMAN: And just very briefly, Hillary�explain what she did. A cartoon?
BOB SCHWARTZ: She had done a�I think a MySpace parody of her�of an assistant principal, a paragraph or two, with internet humor of an adolescent variety, finishing by saying, �I hope that Mrs. Smith��or Jones��has a sense of humor.� It turned out that the assistant principal didn�t, we gather, at least, complained to the police, who filed a harassment petition against Hillary. This is the kind of case, like Kurt�s and like Jamie�s, that never should have been in court in the first place, let alone get to a trial. Juvenile court is not designed for this kind of adolescent misbehavior. The cases should have been diverted entirely. Instead, Hillary and Kurt and Jamie and thousands of others were used by the court for profit, while many people over many years stood by watching. |
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/17/penn_judges_plead_guilty_to_taking
Can the idea that privatization is the answer to government inefficiency really be taken seriously? It opens up the door to so many abuses when you take national necessities and turn them into for-profit institutions. Just look at Iraq for another example. |
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Chuvok
Joined: 25 Jan 2009
Location: Russia
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| Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 11:18 pm Post subject: |
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THAT IS LOW.......! Even for the USA....
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Poemer
Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Location: Mullae
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| Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 11:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Jingoistic ranters will be ignored, no matter how large the caps. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:19 am Post subject: |
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| BOB SCHWARTZ: She had done a�I think a MySpace parody of her�of an assistant principal, a paragraph or two, with internet humor of an adolescent variety, finishing by saying, �I hope that Mrs. Smith��or Jones��has a sense of humor.� It turned out that the assistant principal didn�t, we gather, at least, complained to the police, who filed a harassment petition against Hillary. |
Unless that parody contained actual libel, or incitement to criminal activity, I'd say that the original prosecution of the kid was a scandal, even apart from the bribery at sentencing.
Then again, professional teachers tend to be a rather thin-skinned bunch, in my observation. I remember years ago, I saw an interview on TV with a teacher who was leading some crusade against the Freddie Kruger TV show. After some probing by the interviewer, the teacher admitted that his antipathy to the show resulted from having seen some drawings that a student made of him(the teacher) being killed by Freddie Kruger. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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yawarakaijin
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2009 6:54 pm Post subject: |
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I alway thought is was something a koreaphile and a Star Trek Voyager nerd had come up with. Chuseok + Tuvok = Chuvok no?  |
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Chuvok
Joined: 25 Jan 2009
Location: Russia
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| Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:25 am Post subject: |
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Funny coincidence, but that's not me.
Chuvok is a Russian slang term like "the man" or "cool guy". Fairly common. Not surprising there are other people with the same nickname.
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 6:07 am Post subject: |
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| Fair enough. |
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