‘Kids-for-cash’ trial opens in Pennsylvania

In a “kids-for-cash” scandal that’s being called the most serious cases of judicial wrongdoing in recent decades, two judges in Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County allegedly accepted nearly $2.9 million for locking up juvenile defenders in privately run detention facilities.

According to federal charges against ex-Judges Michael T. Conahan and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., while presiding over juvenile court the pair took kickbacks from the owner and builder of two private detention centers. In exchange, the judges closed a county-run detention facility in 2002. To keep the private centers busy, for over five years they handed down harsh sentences to nearly 4,000 children as young as 10, largely for minor offences.

The state investigation that eventually led to federal charges against the two found that in 2007 one out of four juveniles ruled delinquent in Luzerne County was incarcerated. That is nearly double the rate elsewhere in Pennsylvania.

In 2009 Conahan pled guilty to a single corruption count. He is awaiting sentencing of up to seven years in prison. Initially offered the same option, Ciavarella also pled guilty. He later changed his plea after federal Judge Edwin M. Kosik killed the deal as too lenient. On Feb. 7 Ciavarella’s federal corruption trial got under way in a Scranton, Pa., courthouse.

Charges have been filed against nearly 30 officials, including another judge, a state senator, school board members and county officials. The private detention facility builder, Robert Mericle, and owner Robert J. Powell also pled guilty.

Full details of the kickback scheme, however, have not yet been made public because Ciavarella’s case is the first to come to trial. Testifying as a lead prosecution witness, Powell claimed the judges extorted millions from him in exchange for their services. Powell received more than $30 million in county funds to house children and teen-agers whom Ciavarella sent to his facilities.

11-year-old taken away in shackles

Ciavarella has had nearly two years to prepare his defense. The young people he sent to detention were denied their most basic rights to due process and fair trials. Frequently the teenagers and their families were talked into waiving their right to counsel, a major factor contributing to the convictions.

Over half of the youths involved appeared before the judges without attorneys. This is the highest rate of nonrepresentation in any juvenile court in the country, according to Marsha Levick, chief counsel for the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia (Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 6). Pennsylvania has yet to require that all juvenile defendants be represented by a lawyer.

Ciavarella sent an 11-year-old boy away in leg shackles when his parents could not afford to pay a $488 fine. The judge imposed a six-month sentence on a teenager who was seen giving the finger to a police officer. A 15-year-old girl was jailed for creating a parody MySpace page that poked fun at an assistant principal.

Frequently trials were over in minutes, leaving stunned parents watching their kids being taken away in handcuffs and shackles after being sentenced to months and even years in detention.

The kids-for-cash scandal was fueled by the growing practice of school officials calling police for minor offenses. Numerous incidents have surfaced across the U.S. of children as young as 6 being arrested simply for bringing a pair of scissors — now considered a “weapon” — to school.

Rather than question the high incarceration rate, local newspapers including the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader saluted Ciavarella, who was named “man of the year” in 2006 by the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of Greater Wilkes-Barre.

Ciavarella has publicly acknowledged taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from both the owner and the builder of the detention centers and failing to pay taxes on this income. He insists the money was a “finder’s fee” for putting the owner in contact with the builder. The alleged bribes supported a lavish lifestyle for the two former judges, including the joint purchase of an $800,000 condo in Florida.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2009 more than 7.2 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole in the U.S. — one in every 32 adults. More than 92,854 youth are incarcerated in juvenile facilities. From 1992 to 1997, laws passed in 44 states and the District of Columbia made it easier to try juveniles as adults, a policy that disproportionately affects African-American youth and other youth of color.

Given the thriving prison-industrial complex industry, Luzerne County’s prisoners-for-profit arrangement is far from the only one.