Attend the tale of the juvenile justice system in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Imagine that your son or daughter has been arrested and charged with attending a party where underage kids were drinking or, writing their name on a building wall or, defaming the character of a teacher on the internet. You're embarrassed as your repentant offspring is hauled in front of a judge. You're expecting a stern reprimand directed at both your child and most probably, at you. Imagine your surprise when, instead of a tongue-lashing, your child is sentenced to three months in a correctional facility.
Such was the fate of an estimated 5,000 (yes, 5,000!) young people in Luzerne County in Northeastern Pennsylvania. It seems that two judges, Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella, Jr cooked up a nifty scheme to not only rid the streets of budding delinquents but make a nice buck in the bargain. Judge Conahan secured a contract with two privately run youth detention centers operated by PA Child Care whereby, in return for a small gratuity, Judge Ciavarella would keep the company's facility stocked with miscreants. The total payoff ran to something north of $2.6 million.
Because judges are among the last remaining absolute monarchs in the world, the plan went unchallenged for eight years. Conahan was president judge in control of the budget and Ciavarella ran the juvenile division. It's a wonder these guys were ever caught. According to their plea agreement, both judges will serve 87 months in prison. (For the mathematically challenged, that's 7 years, 3 months.) And you thought Charles Dickens just made those stories up, didn't you?
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What makes this even worse is the difficulty that the improperly jailed children will have in suing for what is a massive violation of their cilvil rights. Judges are civilly immune from suit. (That does no mean that they can't be jailed or disbarred.) The reason for this is that we don't want judges to be dterred from makingdecsions by the certainty that he will be sued by unhappy parties. The immunity applies to core judicial functions such as sentencing. You can sue the correctional institution which paid the bribes but it is probably already broke. That leaves the State of Pennsylvania as the only deep pocket left. If kids were locked up improperly for 3 months each case is worth at least $20,000 and probably much more. (It's easy to imagine the bad things that might hasve happended to individual kids.)Pennsylvania could end up on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.
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